Saved
by YFate
Summary: She is running from a stalker in the night, when suddenly a growl erupts from the darkness... A TsumeOC fic, elder sister of Cher Degre, set before the anime storyline Plz R&R! COMPLETE
1. Default Chapter

Saved  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.  
  
A/N: This is my first Wolf's Rain fanfic. I have only seen up to episode 4 and am enthralled by the series. This may be very OOC. The character Marie Degre is of my own fashioning, she is the older sister of a very young Cher Degre. This story takes place fifteen to twenty years before the anime.  
  
WARNING: DARK IMAGERY IN THIS CHAPTER  
  
Chapter One: Blind Alley  
  
Browsing through her notes as she walked, Marie Degre almost missed the small signs that someone was following her. Perhaps it was the slight shuffle of footsteps behind her, or the sudden quiet on the darkening streets.  
  
Distracted thoughts dissipating, she suddenly looked up, her blue eyes widening as she noted just how deserted the street was. The wind whistled through the shadowed avenue, and a rustling scrap of newspaper danced away from her as a tangle of buttery blond hair flicked past her vision.  
  
Sighing in exasperation, she combed the tendril back behind her ear, settling her glasses more firmly on her nose. The papers fluttered in her hand, and an icy feeling shot down her back. She whipped her head around, freeing the tangle from behind her ear once more, but she ignored it, her blue eyes intense on the shadowed stranger who followed her.  
  
He was muffled in a thick overcoat, a battered hat pulled low, hiding his eyes. Instinct made Marie whip back around, and continue walking. The steps behind her became louder, more deliberate. Gripping her study notes in a white-knuckled hand, the young woman quickened her pace. The footfalls behind her also increased in a menacing melody behind hers.  
  
Instinct screamed at her, and Marie broke into an awkward run, her heels tapping the pavement. The steps behind her quickened, and she heard a mocking laugh. Heart beating in her ears, she dropped her notes in a flutter as the wind picked them up and hurled them behind her. Awkwardly kicking off her impractical shoes, she gasped and stretched her legs out, intent on running for her life.  
  
The heavy tread behind her was gaining, and each gasping breath was sending a stab through her lungs. How the hell could she outrun him? Why hadn't she paid attention to what was going on around her? Why hadn't she noticed how few people were down this street? Her thoughts ran turmoil through her mind, even as she felt the seconds freeze into timelessness. Each sharp gasp of her tortured lungs, each stab from her tensed muscles, each step against harsh concrete by her bare feet seemed to take forever.  
  
Choking on her terror, she managed to scream out between breaths, "Help me! Somebody help me!"  
  
No one answered her but the man's mocking laughter on her neck as he lunged to grab her arm.  
  
With surprising strength, Marie managed to twist out of his fumbling grasp, and she darted across the deserted road, blindly running into a side street between deserted, boarded-up buildings that she hoped would lead her into a more crowded avenue.  
  
A moan of terror escaped her lips as she realized she had turned down a blind alley, the garbage-festooned street ended in a blank wall, the bricks chipped by time and dirt. Agony pierced through her right foot and she crumpled into a heaving pile as she stumbled from the sudden pain. Landing on her hands, she hissed out an anguished cry and turned over to face her attacker.  
  
Her stalker was a darker shadow against the alley entrance. The overcoat's edges parted and an unshaven face grinned at her, showing rotted teeth. His cold laughter echoed off of the imprisoning brick walls as he took a deliberate step forward.  
  
Inhaling deeply, Marie let out a scream loud enough to wake the dead, hoping someone-anyone-would hear her cry.  
  
"No one can hear you, bitch." The gruff voice mocked her as the man took another step closer.  
  
"Leave me alone! What do you want from me!" Marie scrambled backwards awkwardly on her hands and left foot, the right throbbing in pain and refusing to support her. She crab-walked her way to the nearest wall, trying to keep away from the leering man. Her fingers fanned behind her, looking for anything to use as a weapon. A rotted stick of wood came to her grasping hand, and she clutched it as a spike of desperate hope flared through her terror-filled mind.  
  
Thrusting the stick forward, she bumped the wall with her backside, and used her other hand as a prop to climb upwards along it. "Stay away from me!" She screamed at the man, who just chuckled low in his throat.  
  
"Come on, now, honey. I just want to give you a little bit of fun..." The man lunged for her, and Marie swung the rotted stick desperately at his reaching hands. The man easily batted her weak defense aside, and pushed her off-balance. She fell back against the wall, her head soundly smacking the unforgiving brick behind her with a sick thud that sent multi-colored lights dancing in front of her eyes. Her body slithered down the wall as the air whooshed out of her throat in a desperate sob.  
  
The man's hot breath was on her cheek as he bent over her, one hand fisting a glint of sharpened steel as the other busied inside his overcoat, fumbling open his pants. "That was cute, bitch, but you're mine now. You're a sweet piece of candy, let me tell you. A pretty little thing like you shouldn't have been walking all alone down..."  
  
The man's taunting voice and Marie's heart-wrenched sob were cut off abruptly by a low, warning rumble from behind them. They both froze as the rumble increased in volume to a menacing, teeth-baring growl. 


	2. Chapter Two

Saved  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.  
  
A/N: Some of the following may seem a bit on the "strange" side. I have tried to keep wolfish behavior as truthfully as possible. One of the things I admire about Wolf's Rain is that the story makes the characters act like wolves, and not like "civilized" human beings. I really appreciate the reviews! Thanks for all the support!  
  
WARNING: DARK IMAGERY/LANGUAGE IN THIS CHAPTER  
  
Chapter Two: Death's Jaws  
  
"What the f---!" The man's exclamation was cut off as he screamed soprano. Through her blurring vision, Marie watched in horror as saliva- dripping teeth sunk into the man's shoulder. A flash of silvery fur and hotly yellowed eyes danced across her mind, as disbelief and incredulity warred within her. Sobbing, she tried to shrink back against the wall and into herself as she watched the man's desperate fight for his life.  
  
The man's knife slashed desperately against a leg, and the animal yelped in pain, letting go of his shoulder. The man slithered backwards, holding his bloodied knife in a weak defense. "What the fuck are you!" He yelled at the animal, who answered with a fanged snarl. Marie shivered in horror, her over-ridden mind focusing on the jagged rows of death that awaited the man. The yellow eyes, hot with bloodlust, devoured the man's soul.  
  
"Get the fuck outta here, you mangy mutt!" The man shouted, desperation and fear twisting in his voice.  
  
The animal seemed to grin.  
  
And then he leapt.  
  
Marie covered her eyes with her hands, choking on her sobs, unable to watch. She heard the scream cut off abruptly into a sick, gurgling sound as a heavy weight impacted on the asphalt. Rolling into a fetal position, her mind whirled under the onslaught of sounds, terror nipping at her sanity.  
  
Abrupt silence froze her soul.  
  
She waited in terror for the hot breath of certain death to find her.  
  
Death whined.  
  
Startled blue eyes opened, and her hands clenched on her pale cheeks. The animal, silver fur greyed with shadows from the darkened street, looked at her with glowing eyes. A wet splatter of sound hit the pavement by the animal's left shoulder where the man's knife had sliced it. Marie's eyes held the animal's like a lifeline, uncertain and afraid.  
  
The animal's triangular ears perked, and he made a low sound in his throat. Marie swallowed convulsively, and tried to draw her numbed legs in. At her movement, the animal stiffened, and growled. Blood-covered teeth barred in fanged spikes, the yellow eyes heating once more.  
  
Marie clenched her eyes closed, certain of her own death now. A low moan of sorrow hissed from her throat as she prepared for the worst. She could hear the foot-pads of Death stalking closer, could even feel the hot, growling breath on her hyper-sensitive skin. A sad mew of helpless protest escaped her.  
  
Something nosed her cheek, and she tightened in upon herself, waiting for Death's jaws to clench around her throat. Instead, something tickled her arm, and she almost sobbed as the animal nosed her shaking body, the heavy presence traveling from her arm and down her torso to her bent legs where she curled on her left side, facing the wall. She almost cried out when she felt the hot breath on her bare right foot, her toes curling instinctively.  
  
She jerked as a long, rough tongue swiped at her bloodied foot. A growl froze her reaction as a rough paw, claws digging into her skin, stepped on her leg, bringing formidable weight to bear down on it. She stared in shock as the animal, holding her right leg still with its own, lapped at the blood on her wounded heel.  
  
She couldn't bite back the strained, terrified sob that broke from her white lips. A cold yellow stare was her only answer before the animal bent back to his task. Marie watched in tensed fear as the animal cleaned her foot, the rough side of his tongue bathing her heel in saliva. She couldn't quit shivering, her mind reeling with the impossibility of it all.  
  
The animal gave her injured foot one last swipe of its tongue, flashed her another unreadable golden glare, and then the weight was lifted from her leg as the animal turned away. Marie's body half-twisted as she followed him with her unbelieving eyes, her shaking hands coming to rest on the soiled ground in support as he stalked away from her.  
  
He was favoring his left leg, giving his proud walk a slight, barely noticeable hitch.  
  
"Wait!" She called out breathlessly, even as her mind screamed at her to remain silent.  
  
The animal gave her a coldly yellow stare, and then faced toward the street again.  
  
Marie lurched forward on her hands and knees, trying to gain her feet. She leaned her weight on the left leg, careful with her right. The animal turned at the sounds of her movement and growled menacingly.  
  
"Please." She said, tears blurring her blue eyes as her head swayed with the sudden activity. Dirty tangles of blond hair fell over her cheeks as she stared at the silver animal. "You're hurt." She gestured helplessly.  
  
The animal wrinkled his mouth, showing fanged teeth, but stopped growling.  
  
When she tried to use the wall to hike herself up, the animal's low rumble froze her motion. Sinking back to her knees, the animal quit making the noise.  
  
"Please. Let me help you." She actually pleaded, breathless lest the animal growl again. She inched forward on her hands and knees, and the animal stayed silent, watching her closely. He waited with unearthly patience as she slowly crawled forward, instinctively hugging the ground. Her height was smaller than his shoulder when on her hands and knees---the animal seemed offended when she tried to rise above him.  
  
"You helped me. You saved me." She said softly, her blue eyes compelling. "Please. Let me help you."  
  
The animal allowed her to draw closer to him. When she was two feet away, she held out her hand, making a soft noise in the back of her throat. The ears flattened, and the animal answered her with a gruff noise of his own.  
  
"Please. Let me." She said, tears of fright and compassion making her blue eyes glow.  
  
The animal sniffed the air delicately with its nose, and seemed to relax. Marie's shoulders sagged in faint relief. Her head was still pounding, but she kept the nausea back with determination. She inched closer, making soft, soothing sounds even as she kept her hand out, palm open but fingers together.  
  
The big head dipped, and the long tongue licked her hand roughly. Elation almost made Marie giddy, she felt faint as the silver animal stepped closer to her. Daring to sit back on her knees, she brought her other hand up, palm scraped and abraded, to let him sniff that too. Daringly, she laid her small hand on the wiry fur, smelling the metallic scent of blood on the animal's hot breath.  
  
The animal tensed under her palm, but merely wrinkled his mouth at her when she uttered soothing sounds. "Please. Please let me help you." She whispered, tentatively petting the silver fur.  
  
The left paw raised slightly, and the animal deliberately placed it in front of her. Taking that as allowance, Marie used both hands to feel for the dripping wound. She could feel the yellow eyes intently focused on her face as she became distracted by the cut. Dried blood crusted the wound on the well-muscled shoulder, matting the silver fur. The wound still bled sullenly. Feeling with her fingers, she could tell that the cut was not deep, but inconvenient. She half-expected the animal to shy away when she tore at her shirt, looking for cloth to use as a bandage.  
  
Tiny hairs rose over her white skin as the chilly night air goose- bumped its way over her bared arms as she slid out of her white, silk blouse. Her nipples puckered under her lacy bra at the touch of the air, but she ignored her own reactions to the cold. The silken material of her shirt was dirty and torn from her ordeal, but it was the only thing she had on hand. Turning it inside out, she gripped the collar and ruthlessly tore it down the middle.  
  
"Let me just cover this. At least I can stop the bleeding until I can get it cleaned." She explained to the animal, who just stared at her with unfathomable yellow eyes. Using the cleaner side of her silk blouse, she cleared out what blood she could with her own saliva, lacking anything better. When she had most of it off, she used the other half of her blouse to bandage the shoulder.  
  
She lost all fear of the animal as she bent to her task, leaning in to wrap the impromptu dressing under the deep chest and back over the broad spine. Her breasts were pressed against wiry fur as she inadvertently hugged him, trying to gather the two ends of the slippery cloth in her hands. She nearly jumped when a heavy head came to rest on her left shoulder, a heated breath caressing her neck and back. She let out a soft gasp as a rough tongue licked at the nape of her neck. She could smell the earth, blood, and musty odor that were the animal's unique scent, and she shivered involuntarily.  
  
The animal's head raised off of her shoulder, and he seemed to look back down the alley at the slumped form Marie's eyes deliberately avoided. As she finished tying off the awkward bandage, Marie sat back and appraised her work.  
  
"Not too bad. It'll do, for now." She said with some hint of satisfaction. The animal's yellow eyes turned back toward her, and she awkwardly patted it.  
  
"You're a beautiful dog." She breathed, looking at the strong, silver form.  
  
The animal growled.  
  
Marie actually let out a slight laugh, even as she raised her hands defensively. "Okay. You're not a dog." She smiled, completely at ease with the beautiful creature. The animal quit growling, and wuffed low in his throat.  
  
Marie felt suddenly drained and tired, her headache coming back with a vengeance. She sat back on her heels wearily and sighed. "I need to get you home, so I can clean that cut properly. And I need to clean my foot too." She leaned up on her knees, and was surprised when the animal-who- denied-being-a-dog stepped closer, allowing her to use him as a prop to stand up. She kept her weight on her left heel, balancing herself with the toes of her right foot, instinctively keeping the sharp stab of pain up and away from the ground.  
  
"We're a pair, aren't we?" She asked, tiredly amused as the animal pressed to her legs. She kept her right hand tangled in the wiry fur as they both turned toward the beckoning street. They hobbled together, bracing each other as they slowly made their way out of the alley.  
  
A flash of lights caught her eye, and relief flooded her numbed mind as she waved tiredly at the vehicle that followed the eye-blinding beams. The auto slowed, and she thanked whatever Fates had sent her the gift of an empty taxi. A smeared window slid down, and an incredulous pair of brown eyes over a bewhiskered chin and broken nose stared at her.  
  
"I need a ride." She said lamely, suddenly aware of what she must look like, standing in her bra and skirt, her knees and elbows scraped, her feet bare and her blond hair dirty and half-falling out of its neat bun. At the driver's doubtful scowl, she reached into her skirt pocket and produced a wad of bills. "I can pay. I need to get home."  
  
"What about him?" The driver thumbed a dirty digit at the silver animal, who growled menacingly.  
  
"He's with me." Marie's voice was cold, daring him to question her.  
  
"All right, lady, but you better keep that damned dog in the back and away from me. And quit him growling. Gives me the willies." He shivered in demonstration, his brown eyes unhappily staring at the bristling animal.  
  
Marie opened the back door. "Come on." She coaxed, and the animal jumped into the backseat. He took up most of the room on the cracked cushion, and he growled at the taxi driver, who hunched down in his seat. Marie slid in after the animal, closing the door.  
  
"Get your dog to lie down, lady! I can't drive with him breathing down my neck!" The driver squealed a protest.  
  
Her hand tangled in the silvery fur.  
  
"He's not a dog." She said, her hand pressing down minutely. The animal complied reluctantly, settling down on his back haunches, his front paws over Marie's legs. He continued a low rumble of warning in his throat.  
  
The driver twitched in reaction as he pulled the auto out of park. "Then what the hell is he?"  
  
Marie smiled into enigmatic golden eyes.  
  
"He's mine." 


	3. Chapter Three

Saved  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.  
  
A/N: Thanks for all of the reviews! Muchly appreciated. Warning: A bit of fluff in this chapter.  
  
Chapter Three: Safe and Protected  
  
Thank the Fates that the doorman to her apartment building was asleep at his desk. Marie didn't want to explain her clothes---or lack thereof--- or her overly-protective companion to anybody else. The taxi driver had been enough. She'd given him extra for putting up with the animal.  
  
The animal stayed by her side, only giving a single snarl at the snoring doorman. The elevator was crowded with him in it, he took up so much room. The hall on her floor was deserted---thank the Fates again---and they hobbled down the hall. She fumbled for her keys, and opened her door, one small hand holding herself up against the door frame.  
  
The animal proceeded her into the tiny apartment, a low warning rumble in his throat. He made a quick tour of the premises---the single bedroom with its cubicle bath attached, the main living area where her "kitchen" was lined up against one wall. She didn't earn much as a student studying for her master's degree, only working as a part-time computer technician for Professor Davigny. She could barely afford to pay for her classes, and she certainly couldn't ask her mother for help...she was so strained already, with young Cher still in primary.  
  
Still---it was home.  
  
Closing the door, she leaned tiredly against it, before a slight wuff behind her drew her attention back to the animal. He stood in the middle of her living room---making the room seems much, much smaller---his ears perked and bloodied fangs grinning at her. Marie almost chuckled. He was definitely not a dog.  
  
"Like it?" She asked, smiling tiredly. "It's small, but home." She limped to the living room. The animal, silver fur gleaming darker shades on back and softer shades underneath, stalked to her side. Leaning on him, she made it to the bathroom.  
  
"Let me get some peroxide, so I can clean out your cut." She waved airily. The animal sat on his haunches and watched her with an almost unnerving golden stare as she busied herself pulling out peroxide and clean bandages. She had her conscientious mother to thank for stocking her apartment with an emergency medical supply...Marie would never have thought about it.  
  
The bathroom was much too small to hold both of them, so Marie coaxed the animal back into the living room. He waited patiently as she heated water in the micro and pulled some fancy dishtowels---another gift from her mother---from the cupboard. Her mother would die if she knew what Marie intended to use the fancy tea-cloths for, but she didn't have anything else, and Marie was prosaic about it.  
  
"You know, I need to call you something." She said companionably as she gathered the stuff together and hobbled to the living room. The animal had pushed her coffee table flush with the couch with his bulk, and Marie had to smile at the rearrangement of her furniture. She knelt down next to the animal, and pulled the makeshift bandage off. Making a face at the dirty cloth, she tossed it aside.  
  
Yellow eyes stared at her as Marie stared at the cut. In the light of her apartment, she could see that it wasn't bad at all. More mess than blood. She soaked a fluffy towel in the water, and pressed it gently to the cut. The animal rumbled low in his throat, but allowed her to carefully clean the soiled blood away.  
  
"This may hurt a bit." She cautioned as she applied the peroxide. The astringent bubbled and foamed, removing bacteria from the shallow cut. "Do you have a name?" She asked, trying to distract them both while the peroxide did its work.  
  
The animal stared at her. "Woof." He answered, low in his throat.  
  
"Woof?" Marie looked at him askance. Hardly dignified.  
  
The animal wrinkled his mouth at her. She would have to clean the blood from there too, she noted with an internal shiver. The animal added a single, "Worf."  
  
"Wor..." Marie wrinkled her own lips in a frown. Maybe, he meant 'wolf'. At least it was better than 'dog'. "Wolf?" She asked.  
  
A tongue lolled out between bloodied jaws.  
  
"But wolves have been extinct for nearly two hundred years." She said in puzzlement.  
  
The animal growled.  
  
Marie shrugged. So be it.  
  
"Okay, Wolf." She patted the wide shoulder, and the animal again grinned at her. Funny how much he seemed to understand and communicate with a simple action. It was almost as if he was human. She shook her head. She was growing tired, and her headache hadn't let up at all. Her own scrapes and cuts were burning, and she was dying for a shower.  
  
She briskly cleaned up the peroxide, and carefully dressed the wound, with proper bandages this time. It was easy to anchor it across the chest, and she was careful not to pull any of the wire grey hairs out or press the sticky sides on it. She sat back, and smiled faintly.  
  
"Not bad, Degre." She commented with some satisfaction. Wolf didn't blink. "Thirsty?" She asked, and the yellow eyes finally did blink at her then. Taking that as a positive response, Marie used Wolf's back to pull herself up, and she limped back to the sink. Groping through her cupboards, she pulled out the biggest mixing bowl she owned---wiped the dust off it with an impatient sigh---and filled it with water. She put it down on the tiled floor. She didn't want any water on her rugs, thank you.  
  
Wolf came up and greedily sucked down the water. Marie watched him, as he lifted his dripping jaws and stared back at her. The water in the bowl had turned faintly pink. Marie filled it twice more as the animal carefully cleaned his face, using the water and his own tongue to carefully lick away any crust of blood that flecked his mouth and fur.  
  
"Somehow, I should feel sorry for that ass hole." Marie commented drily to herself. A yellow stare was her only answer. She shrugged, dismissing it, and groaned. "Now it's my turn!" She told Wolf. "I desperately need a shower."  
  
She was surprised when Wolf followed her back in the bedroom. "You are NOT following me in here." She glared at him, closing the bathroom door firmly.  
  
A loud, menacing growl made her open the door again, blue eyes wide. They stared at each other for a long minute. Crossing her arms, Marie's eyes narrowed. "You are not going to watch me take a shower! Even I have limits!" She said.  
  
Wolf grinned, a long tongue lolling between sharp teeth. Amusement goldened his eyes, but he deliberately turned his back and stalked back into the living room. Marie watched as he carefully turned around and laid down on her rug, his back toward her. When the bathroom door creaked as she tried to close it again, a warning growl made her freeze it in mid-swing. The head didn't turn, but she knew he wasn't going to put up with her closing the door.  
  
She was too tired to deal with it. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed her fluffy bathrobe off of the back of the door and used it like a big blanket as she quickly took off her soiled clothes. Hobbling, she bent over long enough to turn the hot water on. Feeling the temperature warm her fingers, she pulled the shower ring up and did an acrobatic display maneuvering herself behind the curtain and still keeping the bathrobe dry to save her dignity. Once behind the curtain, she nearly slumped against the wall in ecstacy as the warm water massaged her bruised skin.  
  
Mentally groaning, she allowed the water to plaster her hair to her head. Pins pricked at her scalp, and she raised tired arms to pull them free, leaving them in the soap dish with little "pings" of impact. Scrubbing her butter-blond hair back from her face, she just soaked in the soothing warmth for a few moments, before she forgetfully used her right foot to stand, and a sharp pain sent her off-balance and sliding down the shower stall with a loud protest and ungraceful thump of her rear hitting the tub floor.  
  
A questioning wuff from the other room had her saying loudly, "Don't worry about it! I'm fine!"  
  
Now that she was sitting, she might as well look at her own cuts. The warm rain thundered over her as she pulled her foot up, awkwardly sliding in the narrow tub to stare at the bottom of her foot. Something had pierced the padded heel, leaving a deep, but narrow, gash. Dirt was cleaned away by the flowing water, but she was surprised that the cut wasn't still bleeding. The wolf must have stopped the bleeding when he cleaned the blood from it. She had heard once that dog drool had healing qualities in it, but she still wasn't going to trust it over good soap and disinfectant.  
  
Carefully cleaning her heel, she turned her attention to checking the rest of her body for scrapes and cuts. Her palms, knees, and elbows were scraped and abraded, and the lump on the back of her head made her temples pound when she delicately touched it, but she was surprisingly free of any more hurts. There was really nothing, besides the cut on her foot, that a good rest wouldn't cure. She had no fear of tetanus or anything else, she was current with her shots, and she didn't want to pay the money a hospital would demand for doing what she could do herself.  
  
She was really tired by the time she had rinsed her hair out twice. Mind-numbing and sleep-blinking tired. Her muscles were relaxed from the steamy water, and she felt like she was wading through glue. All she could think of was how to get herself from the bath and into bed by the shortest route possible. She wasn't too mind-blurred not to snake a wet hand out for a hanging towel and dry herself off behind the shower curtain. She wrapped the wet tendrils of her hair into the towel and shaped a lop-sided turban to keep it up and off her neck. Another hand snaked out to grab her fluffy robe and she belted the fluffy fabric around her, cursing as the long hem sipped up water from dragging against the sides of the tub. She was going to have to have a talk with Wolf. This was damn awkward.  
  
Wolf watched her, head resting on his paws, as she emerged from the bathroom. She gave him a sour look, and went to her dresser, pulling out a soft sleeveless shirt and short-shorts, her normal sleeping attire. Giving the wolf a baleful glare, she said "Good night.", and firmly shut the bedroom door. Her damp bathrobe came off to pool on the floor around her as she pulled on her nightclothes. The heavy towel came unwound as she bent to pull her shorts up, and the hand she tried to stop its downward momentum only succeeded in pulling it free. Marie was too tired and grouchy to try and wind it back up. She would just have to sleep with wet hair. She did, however, manage to squeeze the worst of the water out, until her blond hair laid damp, but not dripping, down her shoulders and back.  
  
She barely made it to the double-sized bed lumped with pillows and old, soft blankets. She had hauled that bed from her mother's house, and nothing was like the cushy softness of the worn mattress. She nearly groaned in pure happiness as she sunk down into the welcoming folds, tiredly pulling a blanket up over her shoulders as her eyes closed...  
  
She jumped when the blanket was swept aside by sharp teeth pulling it off. She blinked in confusion as a large body jumped next to her on the bed, barely rolling away in time to avoid being squashed under the heavy weight. "What the...?" She glared at the wolf, who merely grinned back at her. He was so large he nearly took up all the bed.  
  
"You are not sleeping in my bed!" She said angrily.  
  
He growled back at her, and stretched his front paws out, knocking a pillow off. Yellow eyes stared at her as he calmly laid his silver head on his paws and curled on his side. The tail flicked once and then stilled. Marie glared back at him, but she was too exhausted to fight him right now. Heaving a big sigh of exasperated defeat, she warned, "You better not drool on me!", before huffily turning her back.  
  
It wasn't that comfortable, laying stiffly straight on the very edge of the bed. She groped, and pulled another blanket up around her, at least part of it---the wolf was laying over the bottom, and she only had enough cloth to cover herself up to her breasts. Darkness tugged at her mind, and she couldn't stay stiff forever. As exhaustion tugged at her soul, she relaxed and curled instinctively into the warmth beside her. The wolf's heated breath whispered over her shoulder, and a heavy head laid alongside hers on the pillows as her back curled against his, her legs tangling in the sheets. A soft rumble soothed her, and she fell into welcoming darkness, feeling safe and protected... 


	4. Chapter Four

Saved  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.

A/N: Sorry about the long wait for the update on f f . n e t. This story was first written as an NC17 on a f f . n e t . (Ignore spaces between words as f f . n e t is not allowing even dot com references now.) This chapter does contain far more adult scenes than the others, and I was wrangling around having to edit out most of it for f f . n e t, who has been deleting a lot of fan fics from their site for crossing the boundary into "too adult". This chapter has been edited, and is very short and may seem choppy (sorry). You can read the full version, if you are old enough, on a f f . n e t (adult fan fiction dot net) or m m . o r g (media miner dot org) under the author "YoukaiFate". Thank you for all of the wonderful support and awesome reviews!

WARNING: Lime! No one under 17 Please! Bad words edited out.

Chapter Four: Who the Smile Are You?  
  
Marie moved restlessly as awareness slowly dawned. She tried to hug the pillow under her cheek closer to her, seeking the darkness of oblivion once more, but the pillow was firmly lodged under her. She felt something warm and heavy cuddling against her, and she sighed dreamily, half-asleep. A warm breath touched her neck, making goose-bumps arch across her skin. She smiled faintly. Wolf... A fuzzy picture of silver and gold flashed through her mind, and one hand absently groped for thickened fur.  
  
Only to find hard muscle.  
  
Something was wrong. Blinking sleepily, she stared down. A long, sinewy arm laid possessively across her curled arm and waist, long fingers draped across her flat abdomen.  
  
Marie blinked.  
  
She was out of the bed in a flash, her feet tangling in the sheets so that the graceful jump turned into a disheveled thud as her bottom hit the floor. Curling tendrils of blond hair obscured her vision, and she angrily swept them aside as she scooted on her butt away from the bed.  
  
The man laid in her bed, his hips swathed in her blankets, the hard planes of his muscular chest starkly contrasting to the blue sheets around him. Brilliantly white hair was cut in a simple military style, a white tail hinting from the side. Yellow eyes stared at her as a firm mouth curved faintly in a smile.  
  
"WHO THE (smile) ARE YOU?" Marie screamed.  
  
The man winced at the sound even as his eyes narrowed.  
  
"WHERE THE HELL IS MY WOLF!" Small hands gripped into fists, and she launched herself at him, snarling in sudden anger and fear.  
  
The man gripped her shoulders in a steely hold even as one small fist hit him in the gut, the other weakly fanning across his cheek. Marie screamed, right in his face, even as he growled and rolled them over in a swift move.  
  
"Stupid woman." The rugged voice hissed against her ear, and Marie tensed, arching her back. She struggled for a moment, but stopped as soon as minute pressure on the back of her head told her where THAT was going to take her.  
  
"Shut up. Do you want to bring someone in here?" The harsh voice hissed again, as the weight on her hips firmed.  
  
Well, duh! That's the idea! Her brain screamed back at him. She allowed a hissing snarl to pass out of her lips, and grew angrier as a quiet laugh heated across her neck.  
  
"You're a feisty little (thing), aren't you?"  
  
Something casually swatted against her temple, and Marie moaned helplessly as darkness suddenly overtook her, her body going limp as her mind swam away from consciousness.  
  
...............................................  
  
Dark lashes fluttered against her cheek as Marie slowly regained awareness. Numbed nerves sent sharp tingles throughout her abused body, and she let out a weak groan that turned into a muffled gasp as her dry mouth felt the fisted cloth that held it open. Her tongue, swollen and dry, worked against the cloth as her blue eyes flew open in panic.  
  
The man stood casually against the wall by her broke-opened bedroom door, arms crossed and yellow eyes intensely watching her. Fire spat from her blue eyes as she realized just how helpless she had been made.

"You waste strength struggling, woman." The man said, a muscle jerking in his thigh as he exchanged his weight from one foot to the other.  
  
Marie stilled, blue eyes widening further as they followed the muscle up.  
  
He was completely, stark-raving, bare-(booty) naked!  
  
Lashes closed and she shook her head as a muffled scream came from her lips. The terror she felt now was nothing like last night's, when a stranger stalked her in the shadows and a wolf had jumped in to rescue her. Wolf! Where was her Wolf! What had the sadistic bastard done with her Wolf? She moaned in anguish, calling his name as tears fell down out of her tightly-closed eyes.  
  
The man was suddenly standing above her, one strong hand cupping the side of her face, a calloused finger stroking the wetness from her cheek. Marie shook her head furiously, trying to dislodge the tender caress, hating him more for that indignity than any other. The hand firmed on her cheek, and she shivered.  
  
"You are so passionate." The heated whisper blazed against her bared shoulder as the man knelt behind her. "I would never expect a human to have..."  
  
His words trailed off, and Marie shook her head again, even as her numbed muscles protested as she tried to roll away from the man.

"I am stronger than you. Your struggles are futile---and grow tedious." He growled at her, impatience and warning roughening the commanding voice.  
  
Tears brightened Marie's intensely blue eyes as her mind screamed at her to fight and her exhausted body betrayed her by sagging tiredly against the hard hold he had on her.  
  
"Better." Triumph glinted in the gold, and Marie's eyes narrowed as fury swamped her mind, taking control over her traitorous body. Nerves screamed in pain as she bucked helplessly against him, seeking any way to worm out of his tightened hold.  
  
A familiarly deep, menacing growl froze her, and Marie's eyes widened in shock as the man bared his teeth, sharp fangs glinting in the faint daylight that peaked across her shaded window.  
  
Wolf?  
  
The molten gold of his eyes calmed as he saw her sudden puzzlement. Arms tightened their hold around her as another faint laugh tickled across her skin. Marie's eyes flicked across his face, seeking traces of her silver savior in the hard, all-too-human face. Only the flash of sharpened canines and the intense gold of his eyes betrayed the man.  
  
A question formed as a muffled hint in her dry throat, and the man nodded, once, sharply.  
  
"I am Tsume." He said, his shoulders tense as he waited for her response. He watched the play of emotions in her deeply blue eyes, the shock and frightened recognition fading into wonder and curiousity, then darkening into a tentative acceptance.  
  
"I am a wolf." His voice was steel under velvet. "You cleaned the wound on my foreleg." His left arm twitched, and Marie's eyes focused on the faint, red welt that stained across the muscled shoulder, inches above the red pattern of marks from her own bite. That, if nothing else, told her that what this man said was true.  
  
Blinking, she slowly nodded, her tongue working drily against the gag that silenced her questions. The curiosity glowed in her eyes, and Wolf---Tsume---let out an impatient sigh.  
  
"I can assume the guise of a human." He said. Marie shook her head, her open lips working against the gag. Gold eyes glared at her even as the arm around her legs slipped away to touch the corner of her gag. "You will not scream." He warned her in a low growl.  
  
Marie shook her head, making blond tendrils curl over her cheeks at the negative movement. Fingers paused for a breath's second, and then gripped the cloth stuffing and pulled it out to toss it aside. Marie gasped in the fresh air greedily, and the arm supporting her back tightened as she coughed weakly. Her tongue worked around her mouth, saliva wetting the caked dryness of her inner gums.  
  
"I would not have gagged you, but you would not have listened." Tsume's apology was hardly worth the label, but it was all she would get from him.  
  
A tongue flicked out, wetting dry lips as Marie said in a hoarse whisper. "Wolf...I was worried about Wolf."  
  
Gold eyes stared at her.  
  
Marie's throat worked convulsively, before she said in whispered wonder. "You're really him?"  
  
A sharp nod.  
  
"H-How...?" The eyes narrowed, and she nodded in return, not wanting to push him. But she had to know why.  
  
"Why...why did you rescue me? Last night?" She couldn't take her eyes off of him.  
  
Her only answer was the flash of sharp teeth in a soft growl, and a rippling shrug that sent her tensed nerves tingling in contact with the muscled movement. She couldn't stop the quiver that ran through her, and she moved slightly in his lap.

Get a hold of yourself, Degre! She told herself sternly, still not meeting his eyes. She couldn't stop the warm glow that settled in her stomach, or the tingling of her nerves as she became conscious of every inch of contact between them.  
  
Thin nostrils flared as Tsume took in her scent, and a rumble ran deep from his throat. His eyes glowed as he studied the woman held tightly in his arms. A tendril of blond hair curled over one side of her forehead and down her delicate jaw-line, the pale cheeks were flushed and warm, and her lashes fluttered as she kept her gaze down and away from his. Muscles flexed across his strong back, and his hips shifted minutely. Eyes gleaming, he waited.  
  
Marie shivered again as his hips flexed. She needed to get her mind off of that hard heat below her, and fast! It had been far too long since a man had held her...years, really. Not since the messy breakup with Jasen that first year in college had she even thought about a man in...that...way.  
  
She bit her lip, and could only think, "Er...thank you. For helping me..." Her eyes flicked upwards to see his expression, and she froze at the molten blaze that intensified the gold in them. Her eyes flicked down to his hard lips, and she could feel the soft rumble from deep in his chest. Desire softened her body, and a small, pink tongue darted out to lick dry lips.  
  
His hard mouth was suddenly on hers, and Marie's mind whirled into hot desire as he crushed her small body to his...


	5. Chapter Five

Saved  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.  
  
WARNING: Limes served in this chapter...and the next...I have edited out NC17 content for and posted both chapters. Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews, much appreciated!  
  
Chapter Five: Turning the Tables  
  
Oh, boy... Marie's body was a in a whirl of sudden heat and desire, and she couldn't stop the mental grin that would have curved her lips except they was a little busy at the moment.  
  
He had a demanding mouth, and she wanted to sigh like a lovelorn virgin when he forced her lips open to ravage the inside. He was already curving over her small form, his hips flexing suggestively. She moaned at the contact of hot skin that engulfed her, and she arched her back, her breasts aching for the weight of his own solid chest against hers.  
  
Her hands twisted, wanting to be free, but they were squashed between them, and he ignored her struggles to clutch her tightly in his arms. He certainly was a demanding lover, and she was more than willing to oblige him...if he would let her free...  
  
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Marie floated like a feather on the aftermath of desire, and it was a slow journey back to reality as the mists cleared before her eyes. Something else was blocking her vision, and her numbed shoulder jerked as she instinctively tried to comb the hair out of her eyes. Instead, a strongly masculine hand came to sweep the curling blond tendril away, and Marie smiled in sleepy gratitude as the fingers continued to comb through her sweat-dampened hair to rest softly on her shoulder.  
  
She snuggled against him, her body nearly boneless as she held his hard form as anchor and shelter. She yawned, lashes flickering closed. All she wanted to do was sleep...  
  
A dark chuckle made her open her eyes in surprise. Her arms were being lifted over his head, and she let out a muffled protest as his fingers plucked at the knotted fabric holding them together. The knot would not give, and he arched, stretching under her, using his sharp teeth to pull apart the fabric. Marie shuddered in reaction, but then groaned as her wrists parted, and numbed nerves were returned to life.  
  
He turned their bodies, so that she lay on her side in the tangled sheets. He pulled her hands between them, and chafed her wrists, soothing the returning circulation with light massage. Her fingers twitched in his, and he finally let them go. Marie finally did what she had always wanted to do, tracing the strong planes of his face and cupping his strong jaw in one palm to allow her thumb to trace the firm line of his lips. He watched her out of unreadable gold eyes.  
  
She wrinkled her nose at him, wanting to hear that sexy chuckle again. "Not bad." She said, an arch to one brow, daring him to challenge her again.  
  
He growled, a low rumble in his throat. While not precisely the reaction she had sought, it was actually exactly what she wanted. Her soft lips stretched into a smile, and she kissed him, nibbling on his mouth until he opened, allowing her tongue to brush against his. Her hands, tingling with new life, swept over the arch of his neck to tighten on his broad shoulders, feeling the flexing of his defined muscles beneath warm palms.

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She shuddered, barely hearing his hot whisper against her heated skin.  
  
"Now we do it my way..."


	6. Chapter Six

Saved  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.  
  
A/N: Lemons have been edited out for version, reasons why the chapters are really short. I made up for it by posting all three together.  
  
WARNING: Limes served...  
  
Chapter Six: Revenge Is A (Witch)

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"I did not beg." The protest was half-muffled into his chest as she snuggled closer.

He just grunted skeptically.

She bit him. Well, not really bit. A nip, really. A lover's nip. It still had his hand tightening like steel where it curved over her shoulder, and his breath was hissed in to come out as a growl.

"Woman..." He warned.

She just giggled, kissing the red mark on his chest in mock apology before snuggling back beside him, her cheek laid against the hard flesh, her breath matching the rise and fall of his own beneath her.

His other hand came up to sweep the blond curls that were forever tangling over her forehead, and his strong fingers lightly traced her cheek. She yawned, feeling warm and relaxed and incredibly tired and even more incredibly fulfilled.

"Well, you know the saying..." She whispered softly, a smile playing over her lips.

His fingers firmed on her jaw, and he raised her head up so he could stare into her eyes. Even questioning, he had some damn sexy eyeballs...

Gold looks damn good on a man...

She yawned again, her lashes fluttering down. So...tired...

"Woman..." His voice was a low rumble of exasperation.

She blinked, trying to focus her thoughts. The stupid curl was back, rolling across half of her vision and she blew it impatiently away. His hand came to pull it off of her forehead and she smiled in sleepy gratitude, before startled back awake as the thought came back to her.

Her grin could only be called wolfish as she lurched up to kiss him on his damn sexy mouth.

It was his turn to blink, and regard her with growing impatience.

She kissed him again, and his eyes narrowed, the gold darkening with desire.

She giggled, and whispered against his mouth, "Take a (witch) to bed...and expect to get bit."

His eyes widened, and then he fell back, his deep, husky laugh nearly dislodging her as it shook through his hard body, making her hold on for dear life as the laughter coursed through him.

"Woman!" His laugh had a nice rumbly quality, kind of like his growl.

"Mmm." She said, snuggling back down to his chest, her cheek firmly planted between the hard muscle and his strong arm wrapping around her. She kissed the slight red mark of her earlier bite once more, and yawned, this time allowing her eyes to close and her body to fall limp.

He shook his head at her, his golden eyes warm as they wandered over the small body draped so---literally---against him.

His voice heated over her skin as sleep started to claim her. "I might have to see who can bite." His hand swept over the arch of her back to lightly caress her buttocks.

"Hmmm...revenge is a (witch)..." She murmured into him, before falling into darkness.

His eyes regarded her for some time, a slight smile curving his mouth, before he, too, allowed them to close in contentment...


	7. Chapter Seven

Saved

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit. 

A/N: Thanks for the reviews and the patience for updating!

Chapter Seven: Easily Distracted 

"Much as I like your...(kiss)...body...with its nicely muscled...(lick)...ooh...nicely, muscled..."

"Woman..."

Marie pulled away at his rumbly growl. His sexy, rumbly growl. Heck, everything about him was sexy to her...

"Can you think of nothing else?"

"Would you want me to?"

'Sexy, rumbly growl...'

(Nip.)

"Woman!"

"Hmmm? C'mere..."

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It was MUCH later, when she had finally gotten her fill---for now---and went back to her original intent and dragged back up one very necessary discussion.

Of course, her hands couldn't stop rubbing soft circles around that nicely muscled chest, until his own hands---so much larger than hers, ooh, she liked that!---trapped them and tightened when she wriggled her fingers suggestively.

He was good at giving her exasperated looks out of narrow golden eyes.

Sighing defeat, Marie gave him a mew of disappointment, blew him a kiss (as much as possible with her hands trapped in his) and blew on that damn curl that fell back over her forehead.

He was damn sexy at smiling too.

Even as he released one of her hands to comb the curl back off of her brow, she said, "You need clothes."

The hand paused in mid-motion. "What?"

"Clothes. You know...fabric?" She gave him a helpless shrug toward what was left of her own nightwear that lay draped on the floor beside the bed. "You can't go walking around outside bare ass naked...although I wouldn't mind, come to think of it."

Eyes narrowing, he growled at her.

'Sexy, rumbly growl...'

Shaking the distracting thoughts out of her mind, Marie tugged her other hand free from his and used both hands to comb back the annoying butter-blond curl---and its even more aggravating twin that came to join it---off of her forehead. She didn't truly realize just what a great pose that was, her arms up and akimbo, her back curved slightly as she sat over his prone body, her breasts pressed out, almost as if she was mocking him with them.

Gold heated so quickly into molten liquid...

Cracking one blue eye open, she scanned him between thick black lashes.

Now it was her turn to glow...

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It was much, MUCH later, after they had had a bit of fun in bed, and of course, on the floor, and of course, in the shower while bathing their love off of one another, that she finally got back to her original topic...and his clothes.

Climbing into a handy pair of denims, she watched him as he watched her, his curiousity apparent. He was so intent in everything he did...

"What is that harness?"

"It's not a harness! It's a bra!"

"Why are you trapping yourself into it?"

"Trapping..." She wanted to throw a pillow at him. "It helps support me!"

"I could support you." A calloused palm came up to do just that, and she giggled and sighed and wanted to be distracted once more...

Drawing away with a shake of her wet hair, she finished fastening her white bra, and pulled a not-so-wrinkled white shirt from her overstuffed closet. He rumbled a faint, growly protest when she pulled the shirt over her head, and she gave him a sexy smile, a promise for later.

"I'm starving, and I know you have to be!"

His stomach answered her, to his growling embarrassment and her delighted laughter.

"See?" Her fingers tickled over his flat stomach, and he sucked it in, reacting to the caress.

"Woman..."

"My name is Marie."

"Woman..."

She turned away from him, and went diving for her shoe-box, the old faded one that held photographs and odd memorabilia, and her little stash of emergency funds. The intent curiousity was back as he watched her tear through all the junk to triumphantly present him with a small wad of notes.

"Ah-hah!"

"What is that?" The golden eyes narrowed on the waving display.

"Money." She answered him, blinking back her surprise. "For your clothes...?"

"I do not need clothes." He said arrogantly, standing there in all of his male glory.

'He certainly doesn't...'

"Yes, you do! I can't have you scaring half the city by walking around naked!"

"I will use my natural form." And suddenly, the grey Wolf was there, his yellowy golden eyes the only thing familiar. It was almost unnerving, when she thought about it.

'His natural form...'

She didn't have to think about it. He was Wolf, and he was Tsume. 'And he's damn hot too...'

"You'd scare the other half of the city." She told him, blue eyes dancing over her bright smile.

He growled...a much deeper growl in this, his natural form.

She glared at him. "You wanna eat, or not?"

He was back in human form...white hair and hard muscle...

Her eyes turned indigo and dewy while looking him over, her pink lips parting slightly as she, again, became distracted...

"I wonder how you'd look in black leather..." She mused half to herself.

"Like this?" He asked, golden eyes glinting with amusement.

She blinked.

He stood there, fully clothed, head to toe, in black leather. Except the jacket was a bit to short, and showed the wonderfully sculptured muscles of his abdomen, and the shoulders were somewhat ripped at the seams, showing off those flexing muscles, and the glimpse of a low-slung shirt underneath the deep V of the jacket was plastered to the well-defined pecks that she just loved to nibble on...

"Wow." She breathed, her indigo eyes almost darkening to black as a wave of arousal hit her. She wanted to take those clothes off of him....strip them off and make wild, passionate love all night and day and night and day and---

"Woman..."

'I'm too easily distracted by him!' She mused to herself, shaking her head again.

"You don't like them?" He asked, rumbling with impatience.

"Are you kidding?" She asked, indignantly rising to her feet and coming to stand in front of him. He was so much taller than her, she barely reached his shoulder. "You're way too sexy in black leather. Where did you get it?"

Tsume shrugged, a nice rippling movement that made her blink and take in a deep breath to calm her wildly beating heart. "Saw it on someone once. Liked it."

She reached out to touch the collar, and felt real leather under her exploring fingers. "Illusion?" She asked, puzzled.

"Whatever works." He gave her a wolfish grin, grabbing her in a bear hug, and spinning her around until she lost her breath in screaming laughter and fell against that sculptured chest in breathless exhaustion. Their proximity brought back her distraction and her laughing blue eyes darkened once more to heated indigo.

She leaned up and kissed him, her soft body melting into his hard one.

"Do they come off as easily?" She breathed into his ear suggestively.

Another wolfish grin and the sudden feel of hot, bare skin and hard muscle was her hoped-for answer...

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It was much, much, MUCH later that they were finally able to get free of the apartment---and each other---and tramp down the street to the local mini-market on the corner, both glaring off the admiring looks directed at both of them by appreciative passerby. Marie had wanted to scratch that dumb brunette's eyes out, she was staring so hard at her Wolf, and Tsume had kept up a low growl while hovering over her protectively, glaring yellow daggers at the men who quickly turned their eyes away from Marie's blond beauty.

She was scanning the limited selection of meat offered by the mini-mart, attended by a nervous little shop-keep who truly didn't want to be there, under Tsume's cold glare.

"What kind of meat do you like?" Marie asked, distracted by the variety.

"Raw." He grinned, fangs suddenly appearing.

The shop-keep squeaked, and scurried away, backwards.

Marie blinked at the little man's hasty departure, and turned a blue-eyed glare on her Wolf.

"Was that necessary?" She demanded, the stupid curl coming back down out of her hasty ponytail just to drive her up the wall with aggravation.

"No." Another fanged flash. "But it was fun."


	8. Chapter Eight

**Saved**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.

_A/N: So it's been way over a year since I last posted a chapter to this fic, but I'm trying to clean up and finish some of my older stories, among many other things. Please let me know if I have any inconsistencies between character and plot development, and I want to thank all the people who urged me for an update. It worked! LOL._

**Chapter Eight: Curiosity Killed the Cat **

She really had to get back to work, and didn't know how Wolf was going to take it. He was certainly protective. Hovering, almost. Not that she minded---the past three days had been glorious, and not all of their time had been spent in the bedroom. Some of it had been spent in the living room, and in the shower, and...

Marie grinned at herself in the mirror, an almost wolfish grin. Gods, he was one demanding lover.

She loved it.

Forcing back a yawn, she turned on the tap to rinse out her toothbrush. Wrinkling her nose at the image in the mirror over her sink, she quickly finished her toilette for the day---ha, her mother was always on her for not using cosmetics, and for not, at least, trying to use one of the thousands of skin creams she was always bringing over. She idly wondered what her mother, overly prim, would think of Tsume.

Best not to think about that right now...

Easing open the door, she tried to keep it quiet. Her small bedroom was cast in deep shadows. Dawn hadn't arrived yet, and she hoped to make it out of the apartment without waking Wolf up. He hadn't said much of anything during her sporadic explanation about her job yesterday...heck, he probably hadn't even paid attention to what she was trying to tell him, too busy distracting her with his gifted tongue.

She shivered, feeling quite warm over the memory. _What a tongue... _

"Oof!" She muffled her exclamation behind her hand, cursing mentally as her stubbed toe sent signals to her brain that it was _not_ happy about being plunked into her dresser. She darted a look at the bed, where a lumpish shadow of covered blankets didn't stir, like she was afraid it would. He must have been as tired as she, because there wasn't so much as a twitch from the pile.

Thankfully, her closet doors were open, and she was able to worm a pair of heels out of the bottom of the pile. They felt the same, so she was good there. Thankfully, she had a lab coat cleaned and pressed in its bag from the cleaners hanging over the back of her couch, so she wouldn't have to fumble another one out of the closet. She would, however, have to see about replacing her glasses. They had been lost somewhere between the street and alley when she had been rescued by her Wolf.

She cast him a last, warm glance before easing open her bedroom door and squeezing out into the living room. She pulled the door closed softly, sighing with relief that she had gotten out without waking Tsume up.

Her thoughts immediately turned to work, as she hunted up the files she had abandoned three nights before and grappled with the bag of her lab coat. She didn't want to make too much noise tearing it open, so she just slung it over her arm. Tucking her feet into the heels she had smuggled from her closet, she patted her skirt pocket to make certain her keys and ID were in place. Opening the front door, she whispered softly into the darkened apartment, "Sleep tight, my Wolf. I'll be back soon."

She closed the door, careful to make no noise, and fumbled her keys into the lock.

Turning it, she gave a little sigh. She would miss her Wolf, but she really needed to get to work---

"Going somewhere?"

She nearly jumped three feet in the air. She did gasp, and drop her keys with a jangling sound on the carpeted hallway floor. Heart racing a mile a minute, she turned wide blue eyes on Tsume, who leaned casually against the wall, arms crossed over his leather-clad chest, yellow eyes glinting at her over a smug twist of his hard lips.

"Wolf!" She breathed. "How...?" Blue eyes flicked from the closed door and back to the firm apparition who leaned so casually outside the door he was supposed to be behind.

The now-familiar rippling movement of his shoulders as he shrugged was her only answer. She hated when he did that, and no amount of wheedling would ever get another answer out of him, she already knew. Her blue eyes sparked her annoyance with him, until he bent down and kissed her firmly, and thoroughly, on the mouth.

Marie melted against him as his arms came down to circle around her waist. Her annoyance and any other thought she might have had went right out the window, until she was only thinking of him, of his heat and strength and overwhelmingly maddening way of utterly distracting her...

Abruptly ending the kiss, Tsume stepped back and Marie mewled softly in protest as his warmth left hers. She blinked wide blue eyes, dewy with desire, and looked up at him, confused.

Golden eyes were lit with smug satisfaction and Marie suddenly had the desire to slug him.

_'Jerk.' _

Tsume casually slung a possessive arm across her shoulders, hauling her slighter frame against his side. His breath was warm and tickling against her ear as he said casually, "So. Where are we going?"

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Plucking the glasses from off her nose with a sigh of irritation, Marie used her thumb and a forefinger to massage the offended area. She had been happy enough to find her old pair of spectacles at the back of her desk drawer this morning, but she had forgotten just how tightly the simple metal frames pinched her nose---which was exactly the reason why she had replaced them!

She made a face at the frames that sat so innocently on her desk as that damn, irritating blond curl decided now was the perfect time to come twisting out of its pin to dangle over one eye.

The universe was completely against her today.

With a muttered oath, Marie dragged the stupid curl back up and pinned it into place. She blinked at the red-headed technician---Don---who had glanced up at her muffled growl to pointedly frown at the untimely disturbance. Marie returned his sour look with one of her own, and he quickly bent back to his work with a studied show of indifference.

_'What an ass---and I don't mean the sexy kind. Jerk!'_

Marie sighed, looking at the pile of paperwork that still awaited her perusal. Most of her irritation was actually springing from the fact that she just didn't understand half of what she needed to. Her assignment was to find errors between particular DNA sequences, and point out the broken links between certain strain compositions, but science---let alone genetics---had never been her strong suit. Her degree was for diagnostic computation and mathematics, not exploratory science and research. She kept getting the feeling that she was missing something vital, and she wasn't getting any answers from the scanty background information provided with the thousand and one streams of hard data she still had to plow through, sequence by boring sequence.

No wonder she was developing a headache.

If she could just _understand_ what all this crap was for, then maybe she wouldn't feel as if she was floundering for no real reason. She might even be able to come up with an easier solution in finding the data that the client desired. _That_ was her particular talent, drawing together inconsequential bits of spurious nonsense that others ignored to come up with surprising conclusions that were often better than what those others could conjure up.

_'Seeing the trees for the forest, that's me.' _She grinned tiredly at her twisting of an old saying. Picking up her glasses again with a grimace, she bent back over her computer. This time, she ignored the overwhelming screens of consecutive DNA strains she _should_ be working on to go and click open the scanty background link provided with the task. Plowing through sequences, as Don was doggedly doing next to her, had gotten her nowhere. Maybe she could save herself some time if she re-examined what the client was hoping to gain from their work, and thus develop a program that would take all the long man-hours of constant scanning right out of the whole stupid project…

_8888888888888888_

No matter which way she turned, she ran into the same blank wall. It was frustrating, _damn_ frustrating. Marie tried to keep her snarls to herself as her computer blipped at her once again, a warning flashing across the screen that she didn't even bother to read, she had already seen it so many stinking times. It was a simple device, the crossed arms of Noble Lord Okum, and a burp about how common access was denied, the site was restricted for security reasons, sensitive information enclosed, blah, blah, blah.

It was just so fucking annoying! How could she get anywhere on this stupid project if she didn't _understand_ it?

It was a losing argument with herself that she would never win. Marie flicked off her screen with a sigh of exasperation. It had been a long day, and right now all she wanted to do was go home and bury her irritation away in Tsume's distracting arms. Her expression softened as she thought of her handsome Wolf. By the Fates, it felt _good_ to have somebody just to think about, someone so damn hot it made her nerves tingle in anticipation just to think of him…

And thinking of him, she'd better get a move on or he might just be ready to break down the door to the lab. He hadn't been that happy this morning, when dropping her off. He had growled at her to keep her ass right there, and only there, and he would be by at six to walk her home. He was such an arrogant tyrant, the ass, and normally such high-handed orders would have pissed her off right good, but Marie found his possessive air delightfully adorable. It felt _nice_ to have someone worrying so much about her.

Flipping papers into a folder to take home with her, Marie waved to Dr. Davigny, who only ignored her. Like Don, he was bent like a crab over his computer terminal, his short, gnarled fingers flicking delicately over the keys so quickly that the images on his screen blurred one into another. The old professor must be working on something big if he were obsessing so much about it. It was only with the truly technical projects that the grumpy old man would ignore his student-technicians, his schedule---and everything else, for that matter---to concentrate on the tangled problem before him.

Glancing out of the corner of her eye, Marie noted with amusement that the professor had already absent-mindedly pulled off his lab-coat to let it dangle by one sleeve off the back of his chair. He had even managed to mash a spent cigarette into the half-eaten donut beside him, rather than the over-flowing ashtray alongside it. Knowing him, he'd probably be here all night…

Thank the Fates she, at least, had the sense to know when she was done. Unlike Don, who was obsessed with proving how good he was, she wouldn't be working through the night until her eyes crossed and she all but fell off of her stool with exhaustion. If Don wanted to prove he could outlast old Davigny, than let him. She, for one, was looking forward to a little time with her Wolf…

_8888888888888888_

The security technician frowned, and waved the guard-captain on duty over for a second opinion. "Sir, there seems to be a lot of interest in the Lunar Project from this particular computer-link. The user tried to access restricted information multiple times this afternoon."

The guard-captain frowned as he bent over the sec-tech's terminal.

"Might be simple curiosity, sir," the lieutenant supplied helpfully, suddenly uneasy with the guard-captain's fierce scowl.

Pulling the keyboard to him, the guard-caption ignored his subordinate to tap out a few commands. "Maybe it is, Lieutenant, and maybe it isn't. Such interest should still be investigated, you never know when it might be something more than 'simple curiosity'…"

"Yes, sir." The lieutenant dutifully replied, but he didn't like how intently his officer was now studying the screen, and the information he had drawn up.

"Degre…" The guard-captain muttered under his breath, his expression unreadable. _Too_ unreadable---it made the lieutenant shiver, and wonder uneasily if he shouldn't have drawn his superior's attention to the woman's particular interest in the Lord Okum's special project…

_8888888888888888_

"What is all this?" He asked her, nibbling on her bare shoulder, interest alight in his yellow eyes.

Marie sighed, relaxing back against him and his solid strength. He was always warm, even naked, as he was now. They had made passionate love as soon as they had stumbled through the door, abandoning dinner in favor of satisfying hunger of another kind. Fierce love and been followed by slow love, and then a languorous dinner as she had tried to entice him into eating something other than raw steak. He had tried her microwaved lasagna with disdain, pronouncing it wasn't fit for wolf or man. Marie had laughed, and abandoned it to attack him once again with something better fitted for wolf and man---or woman, rather.

She had drawn away from him and his too-easy distraction with quite a bit of reluctance, but the questions she had struggled with at work today refused to let her go. Pulling her files to her, she had decided to shuffle through the paperwork she had printed out, hoping to find something that would make sense amidst the vague confusion. Tsume had been content to watch her, his strong hands lightly kneading her shoulders as she relaxed against him.

"Frustrating, that's what it is." She replied with a dark scowl at the ambiguous references hidden within the innocently printed papers.

"I have seen this before." He tapped the small device of the header with casual interest.

"That's Lord Okum's personal arms." Marie glanced at it, uninterested. She had already ferreted out the fact that the Noble himself was funding the Lunar Project. A bit surprising, really. The Nobles, or Lord Okum, specifically, had never shown an overwhelming interest in genetic research before. True, it was _his_ money that allowed the university to function at all, but that was a duty taken for granted by the people of Freeze City, that their Lord would always allocate certain taxes and private funding for educational purposes.

There had been a few muttered protests lately that the Lord was taking more and more money and spending it on expensive toys for the War Department, rather than putting it to a better use. But Lord Okum's word was law in Freeze City, and the protests were few. For the main part, the citizens were quite content with their Lord and their lives as was.

"I just can't seem to find the connection," Marie murmured in disgust as she threw the papers down on the worn coffee table and turned in her lover's arms to lay her forehead tiredly against his broad chest. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she sighed. "It's just so _frustrating!"_

His hand smoothed the buttery curls from off her forehead. "Why do you worry about it, woman?"

She looked up at him, and bit her lip. "I don't know," she said, honestly. "It just…I don't know. It's strange. Why is he so interested in genetics all of a sudden? What is so important with this particular research that they had to call in outside help---Dr. Davigny and the lab---to ferret out the inconsistencies of those DNA strains? Normally, all of it would be handled by the scientists working directly with the project, not by university techs! It's like they are working blind, as if they were trying to construct something from nothing---like they're trying to put a broken vase back together piece by piece, without even knowing what it truly _is…"_

She froze, her wide eyes going indigo as something occurred to her. Amused by the abrupt change in her mood, Tsume allowed her to sit back on her bent knees, her hands spread on the defined muscles of his wide chest for balance.

"I think that's _exactly_ what they are trying to do," she said slowly, wonderingly. "They are trying to make something, _create_ something, and I don't think they really know what it is. I know it has something to do with some type of flora---some kind of plant. A new kind of indestructible food-crop, maybe? There's been some terrible droughts lately…"

She bit her lip, a hand coming up to idly brush the dangling curl out of her eyes. She slipped off the couch with little awareness, her mind caught up in the disturbing ideas that were now circling through her thoughts. Skirting the coffee table, she started to pace the small area between kitchen and living room, up and back, up and back, as if it would help her to sort out her wayward thoughts and come to some kind of realization. Tsume watched her with an enigmaticly golden stare.

"It _could_ be a food-crop. It would sure help the farmers out to have some kind of crop that wouldn't dry up in the fields even as they planted it. The killer droughts of the past few years have made dust bowls out of huge swaths of cultivated land. There are a lot of people going hungry right now because of it. But I just can't see Lord Okum---or _any_ Noble for that matter---showing any particular concern about it. They're too busy snarling at each other, and playing toy soldier. Ever since Lord Darcia took Harmona as his wife---instead of the Lady Jagura, who was older and _should_ have been the one he married---they've been at each other's throats. Dr. Creighton in my political science course last spring said that there would be repercussions from that marriage, though none of us really believed him at the time…"

She paused, a finger tapping idly on her pursed lips. "But none of _that_ is getting me anywhere. I don't think that Lord Darcia's marriage has anything to do with Lord Okum's sudden interest in genetic sequencing. I wonder, though, if Lord Okum isn't trying to create something that he could use militarily. _That_ would make more sense. He is always trying to build better weapons of mass destruction---for defense, he always says, yeah right!---but what the hell does any of _that_ have to do with the _moon?"_

A muscle in the hard line of Tsume's jaw twitched. He abruptly sat up from his indolent lounging across the couch's cushions. His eyes were intent. "What do you mean, the moon?"

She blinked, as if suddenly realizing he was still there. Waving a hand at the pile of papers covering the coffee table, she said, "All that stuff is related to something called the 'Lunar Project.' Dr. Davigny, my boss, was asked to look over some research on DNA strains with the goal to finding inconsistent patterns of sequential links that the scientists themselves did not have the time to spare for. I don't know what the hell it's all supposed to be about, and that is what was frustrating me. Dr. Davigny always told me I was too curious for my own good. Runs in the family, I guess, because Cher is even more inquisitive than me. She always wants to know not only what, but why, and how, and everything else she can get her little fingers digging in."

"Cher?" He asked with a frown.

"My sister. She's only twelve, but she's already top of her class in primary, and she's won the Scientific Achievement Award three years running with her homemade experiments, though the damn things drive my mother crazy. Mom has always been so…" Marie made a helpless gesture with her hands, unable to convey her mother's complicated relationship with both her daughters. She was a good, hard-working woman, but an unimaginative and practical one---which could often drive Marie completely nuts. Her mother could never have accepted something like Tsume with anything but disbelief, and maybe that was what was _really_ bothering her right now…

Marie sat down on the couch beside her Wolf with a thump. "Ah, well, none of that really matters either. I just hope that none of this---" she waved at the papers on the table, "---proves too dangerous for my meddling."

"What do you mean?" Tsume growled, not liking anything that he could not protect her from.

Marie looked at him, soberly for once. "It _was_ curiosity that killed the cat, you know."


	9. Chapter 9

**Saved**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.

_A/N: This chapter is a bit choppy, but I felt I needed the various scenes to develop more plot for this little fic. Thank you once again for all the support. (Fate)_

**Chapter Nine: Damn Complications**

Could life get any better?

Marie doubted it, she really did.

They had settled into something of a routine. Although Tsume didn't like it, she did have a life outside of the bedroom. Not much of one, and not nearly as enjoyable, of course, but she did need to go to work, and she was attending two classes this semester at the nearby university complex. Somehow, the rent needed to be paid, and she was still working on her master's degree.

Tsume's massive appetite had put a major strain on her budget. Raw meat was expensive, especially in the city and in light of the recent droughts that had wracked the countryside. Thousands of people were flooding the city, their farms dried up and their small communities turned into ghost towns. Rumors of war had the city buzzing, but Marie didn't really pay much attention to it.

The Nobles were always snarling at one another, nipping at the borders and circling each other like a pack of hungry jackals. The aloof elite had little to do with Marie's simple life. Their comings and goings were no concern of _hers_. Lord Okum had always kept the peace in Freeze City. He was too powerful a Noble for anyone to ever really want to mess with…or so she kept telling herself, just as every other citizen.

Despite her nagging worries over the Lunar Project, which had them all working long hours with complex programs, nothing much had changed in her unexciting life---except that it had gotten infinitely better, with Wolf now in it.

Marie's fingers tapped the small calendar on her desk thoughtfully. Had it really only been three weeks? Marie could not believe how short the time truly was that she had known her Wolf, and yet the calendar didn't lie. She mused over the past three gloriously wondrous weeks in which she had come to realize how much her life was wrapped up in Tsume, how much she had come to depend on his strength and his presence.

Her life before that fateful night---when a golden-eyed wolf had rescued her from a terror-filled nightmare that still gave her the shivers in recollection---now seemed an empty blur of busy days and lonely nights. She now lived in a magical world of wonder and comfort, laughter and exasperation. She felt as if she could dance and whirl and laugh and scream all at the same time, and the sudden realization that the manic emotions whirling around inside of her, making her heart giggle with glee, had an explanation that she hadn't ever thought could be remotely possible.

She was in love.

_Get a hold of yourself, Degre! _Her mind snapped at her, but she wanted to chuckle with the reaction of her more logical side. She couldn't be in love with a man who wasn't even a man...a person who she had only known three short weeks that had seemed to stretch into forever they were so wonderfully full and enlivening in recall.

Shaking her head, her fingers tapped out the sequence of commands that shut down her computer for the day, and her heart seemed to beat faster in anticipation as the thought occurred to her that in just a few minutes she would be free of the lab and greeting her Wolf, who came to walk her home every day from work or school. His eyes would glow with molten gold the moment he saw her, and as she would snuggle against him with a soft smile when he snaked his arm around her shoulders and hauled her closer to his side. He often kissed her, much to the amusement of her colleagues, and would shrug indifferently when she scolded him for it. Not that she really _minded_ all that much...

A distracted smile curving her soft mouth, Marie fumbled with the papers that lay scattered over her desk. She ignored Dr. Davigny's grumbling good-bye and breezed past the other technicians who worked for the grizzled old professor. Pulling her spectacles from off her nose and slipping them into her pocket, Marie all but ran from the building.

Her heart sped up when she caught sight of him. He leaned casually against the wall, his stance speaking of relaxed and stoic patience, but the narrowed glint of golden vigilance beneath half-lowered lids spoke volumes about the tensed readiness that was so much a part of Tsume's gruff character. Marie's eyes softened to a dewy indigo as she devoured her Wolf visually. The muscles on his flat stomach tightened and his head whipped around, his golden eyes caught by hers.

Marie flung herself at him, and laughed when he growled at her for nearly knocking him off balance. Hard thighs flexed and took her slight weight. She stood up on tip-toe and gave him a warm kiss of greeting before nestling herself against the hard strength of him with a dreamy sigh.

"Woman..." Tsume growled at her in exasperation, although his fingers made circling caresses against her lower back and the hot promise in the golden eyes made her insides squirm and her belly do flip-flops. Her heart was trying its best to match her stomach's acrobatics, and she grinned like an idiot at her Wolf.

Logic be damned. He was hers, and she loved him.

"I'm done. Let's go home." Marie whispered to him, and he hauled her next to his side in a perfunctory way as they walked from the decrepit University building and turned their steps toward home…

ooOOooOOooOOoo

"Degre!"

Marie's head jerked up in surprise and blue eyes widened as she realized several people were staring at her as if she had grown a third eye or something.

Flushing slightly in embarrassment, Marie cleared her throat. "Er...yes, Doctor?"

Dr. Leed's bushy grey brows drew together in a frown. "Miss Degre, I would like you to play at some semblance of attention when I am speaking. I know my class isn't as important to you as whatever it is you are thinking about, but you are here on _my_ time, not yours, and I would appreciate it if you would consider actually paying attention to the subject we are discussing."

A spatter of snickers greeted the testy professor's sharp set-down, and Marie's color heightened in annoyance, at both herself and the pompous professor who delighted in making the students under him squirm.

_Jerk. _

She dropped her eyes and straightened in her seat, trying to appear both attentive and invisible all at the same time. Dr. Leed grunted and began espousing his lecture in a loud voice, as if volume could make up for the dullness of the subject matter.

_Come on, Degre. Focus._ Marie mentally chided herself, but her brain didn't care about mathematical theorizing. She was distracted by counting the days, and what the lack of a certain monthly visitor portended.

There was no way. No way. But it had been at least forty-one days. Forty-one days in which the agony of realization had slowly uncoiled inside her gut, making her stomach churn uneasily at the thought that there just might be the possibility, faint as it was, that she could be…that she might be…that she could very well be…pregnant.

Shit.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

_That_ particular complication wasn't the only shock she received that day. After Dr. Leed's course, she had a half-day's work to do in the computer lab under Dr. Davigny, and that was where she got her second stunner of the day. Marie could only stare at Mish in utter astonishment as the other tech accosted her just as she arrived and was setting her books down on her desk.

"We're _what?"_

"We're off the project. It's been cached. Cut off. Cancelled. Kaput." Mishelle Lantry-Dowles replied with ironic emphasis.

"Not me." Don Evans chose that moment to look smugly superior.

Mishelle gave the lanky, red-headed tech a sour glance. "Well, all of us but Mr. Modest here."

It was Don's turn to look sour. "I don't deserve that, Mish. You know how hard I've worked on this thing. I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in over a month---"

"And whose fault is that, hmmm?" Mishelle gave him a sappy-sweet smile that had the other tech scowling, to Marie's distracted amusement.

"Jealousy doesn't suit you, Mish." Don spat, folding his skinny arms over his chest. The dark circles under his glowering brown eyes spoke eloquently of just how many hours he had really put in, the brown-nosing shit.

"Presumption doesn't suit you either, darling," Mish retorted. Glaring, Don beat a none-too-gracious retreat back to his desk. With a dark flash of her black eyes, Mish muttered, "Arrogant little ass hole, isn't he?"

Rolling her eyes, Marie agreed with the willowy technician's assessment of their fellow student, but quickly steered the topic back to what interested her more. "So we're off the Lunar Project---"

"All of us but Mr. Ass Hole over there." Mish sent the red-headed tech another glare.

_"Why?" _Marie demanded. She had nearly completed the rather complicated, theoretical model of a program that would have saved them many of the long hours that Don had been putting in, scanning those stupid DNA strains code by sequential code.

Mish shrugged. She hadn't been as involved as some of the other student-techs on the genetics project. "Word came down from the Head that the project was being pulled. Dr. Davigny didn't say much; just told us that we were to stop where we were, and that the project was now solely Don's responsibility. We're to concentrate now on those boring inter-gradient ratios on crop-production for Galwin's group instead."

Marie frowned. "I don't like it. Why yank it, when we were just starting to _get_ somewhere?"

Mish shrugged, eloquent as ever. She was a tall, handsome woman, with a dark beauty that had turned more than a few heads, even with her reputation for a sharp, acidic tongue. If she wasn't so firmly devoted to her husband, Les Dowles, she could have had her pick of those interested in keeping her company…

Marie frowned, unhappy with this abrupt change of her workload. "This came direct from the Head?"

"Yep." Mish examined her manicured nails, affecting an air of disinterest that did not fool Marie in the least. The other woman was just as disturbed as Marie over the news, and who and how it had come down the wire. The Head---Dr. Allan, the Director and head of the University Complex---rarely stirred himself to do much of anything, let alone send down a direct order to call it quits on a project the comp-tech department was doing as a favor to an outside research firm.

"I don't like it," Marie said, still frowning, flicking through the obsolete paperwork she now held in her hand. All of her hard work and time right down the tubes---it was a bit insulting, though she didn't know why she was taking it so personally. Abruptly coming to a decision, she added, "I think I need to go talk to Dr. Davigny about this."

Mish smiled slightly. "Let me know what he says, will ya? This disturbs me, more than I can say, and for more reasons than that it's just so damn unexpected."

Marie nodded absently, too busy wondering just what the heck _this_ meant on top of everything else going suddenly wrong in her once easy, uncomplicatedly simple world...

ooOOooOOooOOoo

"Sir?"

"Come in, Miss Degre," Dr. Davigny invited, clearing off the only other chair available in his small, cluttered office. Looking around with a somewhat exasperated air, he finally stashed the messy pile of papers he had pulled off the chair's seat upon the overflowing piles covering the length of his dented, metal desk.

Marie gingerly perched herself on the chair's edge, expecting it to rock back on its broken wheel at any moment. The chair, like much of the university's sagging buildings and aging equipment, was in desperate need of repair, but there was never quite enough money to go around, let alone to see getting it fixed.

"Doctor, I wanted to ask you about the sudden cancellation of the Lunar Project." Marie got straight to the point, uncomfortable with dancing around the subject when the chair beneath her might give way at any second.

The professor regarded her for a long moment behind his thick, bottle-bottomed glasses before saying slowly, "You mean, the Lunar Flower Project?"

_Lunar Flower? _Marie blinked. Was _that_ the particular plant the genetics team was trying to breed? It couldn't be---the idea was just too ludicrous. Moon-flowers were the stuff of legends and fairytales, not practical science. The notion that lunar flowers could be real, and could somehow be genetically bred from scraps of DNA was just_---_ridiculous. Damn crazy and _completely_ absurd.

Her expression must have given her surprise away, for Dr. Davigny actually fidgeted in his seat, and would not meet her eyes. "I know, Miss Degre, it must seem a bit…startling…to realize the true purpose of the project, but I assure you that the notion is not as far-fetched as you might believe..."

Marie stared at his hands, oddly fascinated that the usually unflappable professor was actually _tapping_ his blunt fingers against the worn cover of an old book in nervous agitation. Unobtrusively, she tried to read the title engraved on the front as the professor picked it up, flipping it open to caress the musty pages with a reverent touch, as if seeking reassurance from the faded print.

_'The Book of the Moon'? What the heck does _that_ mean?_

It hardly looked like a gardener's how-to on growing flowers. It rather resembled one of those old books on fairytales she had been ready to dismiss just a minute ago. Dr. Davigny looked downright strange, sitting there holding it open like it held all the wisdom of the Ancients within its worn pages.

Catching sight of her dubious expression, the professor abruptly snapped the book shut. Opening a drawer, he slid the book inside and closed it firmly. Marie could almost hear the faint, metallic click of the drawer's lock engaging as Dr. Davigny clasped his thick hands on the desk between them and looked at her gravely. "What, exactly, can I help you with, Miss Degre?"

"Ah…sir, I was wondering why the…the project…was suddenly cancelled…" Marie felt rather stupid under that steady regard.

"The project has not been cancelled, Miss Degre, merely the personnel involved have been re-evaluated, and it has now been placed in other, more capable, hands." Dr. Davigny replied, his voice cold.

"_Don_, sir?" Marie blurted that out before she thought.

The professor didn't like her questioning of his authority. "Do you have a problem, Miss Degre, with my decision?"

"No, sir." Marie hastily replied, trying to cover her faux pas. "I just…it's just that I was nearly finished with that projective program I set up for the faulty DNA sequences, sir, and---"

"For which I and the research team are deeply grateful, Miss Degre. I was able to implement your program with Mr. Evans' evaluations, and it has greatly reduced the effort needed to finish up this stage of the Project. Dr. Allan desired that I extend personal thanks on his behalf to you for your hard work and effort."

It was clearly a dismissal, if ever she heard one, and if she hadn't gotten the hint, than Dr. Davigny's abrupt rising from behind his desk would have been the signal that this interview was now over. Feeling stupid, Marie stood up as well. She couldn't help but frown as she said unhappily, "Er, thank you, sir."

"Miss Degre?"

Marie paused at the door, glancing back at the professor who she thought she had known so well and was just now realizing with quite a bit of distinct discomfort was hardly the case. "Yes, sir?"

"Miss Degre, you are a bright and clever student. A brilliant programmer, and a competent technician. I enjoy having you in my lab, and believe that you have a good career ahead of you some day. I also know your weaknesses, and that you are sometimes unwilling to listen to authority. I suggest, however, that you take my advice, and forget that the Lunar Project ever existed. You tread dangerous waters, Miss Degre, with your questioning of the intent of this project, and there are those above me who are now watching you closely, to see what you might do. I might have made a mistake in allowing you to know as much as I have, and I beg your pardon for that, but please, take my advise, and forget we ever discussed the subject. Understand?"

"Y-Yes, sir." Marie beat a hasty retreat, grateful to hear the door clicking shut behind her. Leaning against it, she took a deep, steadying breath to try and calm her nerves before going back into the lab, where a pile of unfinished work still awaited her. She felt queasy, and her heart beat in a fast tempo she did not like.

Just how in the hell had her life become so damn complicated all of a sudden, and why the hell did it all have to happen in one damn day? She suddenly felt like crying, and that was such an unnatural reaction for her that she just knew that she had to be pregnant. Didn't pregnant women cry all the time? Didn't they over-react to dumb situations, blowing them all out of proportion? Was that why her hands were shaking? Was that why she suddenly had a fierce desire to run away, far away, and never come back?

Like _that_ would solve anything.

Tightening her shaking hands into fists, Marie took a deep breath and set her shoulders. She was made of sterner stuff than that. So Dr. Davigny had a flare for the dramatic. So he had some strange fascination with stupid fairytales and moonbeam pipe dreams of exotic flowers and dusty old books. So Don was such a kiss-ass that he was willing to humor the old prof, and whatever other fools were involved in that stupid project. She had better things to worry about than some stupid venture into the ridiculous. She had to find a way to break the news to Tsume that she might be carrying his child---or was it his puppy? She felt a sudden, hysterical urge to giggle, and all she really wanted to do was cry.

Damn Dr. Davigny for trying to scare her. Damn Dr. Leed for his snide remarks, and damn Don Kiss-Ass Evans for his smug superiority. He was stealing her work, her program, her credit. Damn _her_ for even caring, and damn her for her own stupidity---in questioning the professor's decision, in truly being frightened by his dire warning, in even taking it seriously, when it was all so stupid, really, not using protection with Tsume, damn that was stupid, damn stupid.

Damn. Damn, damn, damn, damn, _damn_.

Biting her lip and fighting back tears, Marie came to an abrupt decision, and fled. She could make up some lame excuse later, right now she needed some fresh air and some time to think, without anybody else intruding. Her brain was going in circles, muddling everything together so that she wasn't even thinking straight right now.

Life, which had seemed so beautiful and blossoming with such wonderful potential before, seemed to just _suck_ right about now.

Damn it.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

It was chilly for early fall. Last winter had been a hard one, with unplowed snow piling up to twelve feet outside the city walls. Her mother would often reminisce over her own childhood, when a 'blizzard' had been one that left only six inches on the streets, providing an excuse to play rather than causing any true hazard to people. Weather patterns had drastically changed since then, though, and the met lab predicted that _this_ winter would be even harder than last year's. Marie could more than believe it, feeling the icy bite in the wind that tugged her curling blond hair this way. Burying her hands in the deep pockets of her lab coat, she hugged the thin fabric around her as she shivered.

She wasn't ready yet to go back to the lab, however, and her mind was still in such an unhappy turmoil of emotion that she kept on walking, wandering the college complex with no particular purpose or destination in mind. It felt good to walk, to feel the bite in the wind, and the light taps of her heels on the cracked pavement as she let all of her troubling questions fade into numb oblivion.

Wandering aimlessly, and not watching where she was going, she was surprised when she was abruptly stopped half-way across the sprawling campus by a security guard. Blinking up at him as he demanded her ID badge---which she automatically retrieved from her pocket---she realized with some surprise that _this_ guy was hardly a retired rent-a-cop, but one of the specially-trained men who made up Lord Okum's personal guard. They were sometimes used as a policing force in the city, but she had never seen one on campus before.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, worried that there was.

"No, ma'am." The helmeted guard was courteous enough. "Just routine."

He looked young; perhaps this was only some type of training exercise. He studied her ID with particular care, but smiled briefly as he handed it back to her, thanking her politely with a casual warning for her to stay away from any restricted areas.

"Restricted areas?" Marie couldn't help but stare at him in astonishment. Since when had _any_ part of the college been proscribed?

He humored her, even smiling slightly, as if she should know better. "Nothing to fret yourself over, ma'am. The Council has just decreed that certain vulnerable parts of the city should have restricted access because of the growing threat of home-grown terrorism. Tighter security measures prevent any internal dissidents from causing any real trouble."

"What?" Marie felt like an idiot, but the idea was just so ludicrous. Home-grown terrorism? Internal dissidents? Since when had any of the fat, happy, little sheep of Freeze City ever questioned, let alone _threatened_, the authority of Noble Lord Okum and his Council? The denizens of the city were more than content with their Lord. Agreed, he wasn't as philanthropic as his father, and he had allowed much of the public funds---from street maintenance to educational programs---to go short in favor of building up the military, but most people didn't think it was all that much to worry about. There was a few grumbles, of course, but there was always grumbling among the less forgiving. For the most part, people were willing to believe that Lord Okum had good cause to pad up the military, the rumors of possible war with other, greedier Nobles was a threat they could appreciate.

He actually laid a gloved hand on her shoulder, patting the holstered weapon at his side with fond assurance. "Nothing for you to worry yourself over, Blue Eyes. I don't suppose you'd be interested in meeting up with me after I get off patrol? I'm off-duty after six…"

"What?" Marie couldn't believe the guy, fishing for a date in the middle of the sidewalk. "Ah…thank you, no. I…ah…have someone."

Thank the Fates Tsume wasn't here to see this little exchange. He'd have gone after the guard without a qualm, and might have been hurt. That blaster holstered at the guard's side might be made mostly of plastic, but it was no toy.

"Oh? Shame, that. Would've been fun." There was real regret in his voice, and Marie bit her lip as she hurried away, perfectly conscious that the guard stood watching her as she fled for the nearest building, whose entrance was thankfully hidden behind some weedy trees.

Thankfully, because to her shock, she found the doors to the Arts Building locked tight, a bar placed across the double-bolted doors with the Lord Okum's insignia positioned clearly above a simple sign saying, "No Admittance."

"Just what the hell is going on?" She stood there, gawking, as another guard in helmet and dull-grey uniform rounded the corner, blaster at his hip, and mouth a grim line.

"Excuse me, miss. This building is off limits."

Frustrated, Marie demanded, "Since when?"

"Permit?" He replied with cool detachment, and Marie fished her ID badge back out of her pocket with a sigh.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

Glancing over her shoulder, Marie all but ran toward the far edge of the college complex. If she didn't hurry, then Wolf would come sauntering up to meet her, and she didn't want him to cross snarls with any of the ubiquitous guards now patrolling the campus. For one thing, he didn't have any identification that she knew of, for another, he wasn't one to take too well to being stopped and questioned.

With dawning unease, Marie noted there were quite a few buildings that bore the Lord Okum's personal insignia above barred doorways, most of them dealing with the more 'unnecessary' collegiate programs. Like the Arts Building, the Archaeology and the Political Sciences buildings both stood empty and deserted, their windows dark holes in the chipped brick edifices. When the hell had all this happened? Had she been so wrapped up in her own little world that she didn't take note of what was going on around her? True, there had been few enough students interested in taking a degree in any of those programs---which had become rather superfluous when the growing need was for more technologically-oriented majors---but the fact that the buildings were now closed, the programs shut down was…frightening.

_Dissidence would be a convenient excuse to shut the Political Sciences down. _Noble _Lord_ _Okum could just say the program was fermenting a 'rebellious element.' _Marie's eyes flashed at the thought, though she was careful to keep her head down, so no one could see it and take exception to it. Who knew what they might use as an excuse to take in another 'internal dissident.'

_Oh, Fates, has it already come to that in Freeze City?_

She felt very much afraid that it had.

_What a horrifying time to even_ think _about bring a child into this world. Shit._

Caught up in her own dark unhappiness, Marie actually bumped right into him. "Oof!"

Strong hands grabbed her shoulders as she tried to jump back, blue eyes wide with fright as she stared up at him---only to slump against the broad, leather-clad figure in relief.

"Tsume! You scared me!" She scolded breathlessly, her arms wrapping around his waist as she lay a tired head on his shoulder.

He tensed at her embrace, his eyes narrowing on the untidy crop of windblown curls as she snuggled into his solid strength like he was an anchor in a sudden storm. "What is it? What's scared you?"

Hearing the warning growl in his hard voice, Marie tensed up as well, casting a wary glance around them before she relaxed again. The quiet, shadow-crept street was deserted. They could have been the only two people in the world right now---though a distant siren squealed a poignant protest at her idle fancy. Stiffening, she tugged at her Wolf, eager to get home and off of the streets where she felt so vulnerable.

He wouldn't move, but stood his ground and looked around him like he would have her nameless fears creep out from the shadows by stubborn will alone.

"It's nothing, truly." She lied to him. "I'm just…glad to see you."

His yellow eyes stared into hers, until she had to drop her gaze from the intensity of his. Plucking at one of the metal snaps on his black leather jacket, she whispered, "Please…I just want to go home."

He didn't like it, and growled aloud his irritation, but finally complied with the silent plea in her voice, and hauled her close to his side as they turned toward her apartment. Marie huddled into his warmth, feeling silly but needing him and his comfort right now, his presence solid and familiar in a world gone suddenly shadowed by frightening revelations…

Eyes narrowed, Tsume glared into the twilit silence around them above her blond head, his eyes searching the darkness for the unnamed enemy that now seemed to stalk her uneasy mind.

ooOOooOOooOOoo

She had clung to him, seeking comfort and strength in his arms as soon as the door had slipped shut behind them. Her loving was fierce and fervent, a hungry need to push back the inner turmoil of the day and silence both the unanswerable questions and the darkness of her own doubts, if for just a little while longer…

Afterwards, she lay sated, content to lie nestled against him and his strength, her eyes dreamy and soft.

"I love you..." She whispered to the darkness, her voice trailing off into quiet slumber.

His eyes glowed in the darkness, a light of burning intensity. He said nothing, but his arm came up to hold her tightly against him as the night encroached and he kept watch over her.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Saved**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.

_A/N: Thank you for the continued requests for me to update---they do jog me into doing it! This is not the last chapter, I promise, though that is already in the works. (Fate)_

**Chapter Ten: Fickle Fate**

"Wait."

"Huh…?" Marie blinked in surprise as Tsume abruptly turned to face her on the cracked cement of the sidewalk. His hands circled over her upper arms as she bumped into him. She would have liked that position if he had meant to kiss her, as she half-expected. Instead, though, he had them dancing in an awkward, side-ways maneuver that had them all but vanishing between two of the closely-built stone buildings lining the busy street.

"Tsume, what's the matter?" Marie hissed at him, keeping her voice low in reaction to just how tensed up he was. He ignored her, his yellow eyes scanning the brief glimpse of sunny sidewalk beyond their shadow-filled hidey-hole. He intently scanned the people who scurried past, their heads bent down against the biting wind that crept through the city.

He seemed to be testing the air, and she could almost see his nose twitch, though it was only his nostrils widening a bit as he caught something on the light breeze that had him growling slightly. Turning once more, he casually grabbed her by one arm and force-marched her deeper into the narrow, refuse-ridden alley. Marie almost stumbled over a bit of torn cardboard and trash. Tsume merely hauled her closer to his side, threading a way between the tumbled garbage with a dancer's lithe grace.

"Damn it, Wolf…" Marie cursed softly under her breath, her heels not liking the pace or the hike. "What the hell is going on…?"

His white head bent to hers and he whispered tersely, "There was a man staring too hard at you."

"What?" Marie stopped in shock, but his vice-like grip on her arm pulled her back into a stumbling half-run as he rounded the far corner of the shadowed alley and dodged into another. She tried digging her feet into the cracked asphalt, panting now, and demanded sharply, "Tsume! Why are we running?"

He growled at her, his eyes flashing. Squaring her jaw, she met his glare with one of her own. Slipping from his loosened hold, she faced him, hands on her hips and demand in her glittering blue eyes.

"Humans," Tsume growled under his breath, impatient.

"That doesn't answer my question," Marie snapped back, irritated. Why the hell was he running from some stupid guy merely eyeballing her? His jealousy, something that had seemed delightfully amusing before, was irritating her right about now. It was one thing to glare daggers at every man on the street who so much as cocked an eye in her direction, but to actually snatch her off the street and drag her down this stinking alley was just too much!

Nerves made edgy since yesterday's tumultuous revelations had Marie snapping like she normally wouldn't. She was angry, mostly at herself, but she was mad at him as well for being so damn stubborn and so damn possessive. It was as if he knew what she hadn't even told him and if he did, then why hadn't he brought it up? She didn't know how to tell him or what he might do if---when---he found out about her suspicions, and damn it, she needed him acting like a man right now, not a spoiled little brat!

"What is your deal, Tsume? What the hell do you care if some stupid guy stares at me? You're acting like a total jerk!"

The look he turned on her was dangerous, the yellow of his eyes reminding her of the first time she had seen him in the darkened shadows of an alley just like this one. The look was wild and predatory, arrogant and seething with a cold anger that made her stiffen, her eyes going wide.

"He's hunting for something," he finally bit out after a long pause of staring at her with those balefully yellow eyes.

"Huh?" Marie's mouth dropped open. He couldn't be serious. Hunting for something? The guy had probably just mistaken her for someone else. She wore a knitted cap over her hair and was bundled up to the neck in her thick, winter coat. Although it was only September, it was as cold as January right now. She looked like every other stupid person on the damn street, burying themselves in anything warm and hurrying on their way to get out of the dismally unseasonable weather.

Maybe he was just over-reacting. He was a wolf, after all. He had probably been hunted before and was just over-cautious---or paranoid.

Laying an understanding hand on one hard shoulder---which tensed under the light touch, something Marie pretended not to notice---she smiled softly, regretting her earlier harshness. "Wolf, you are just over-reacting---"

"Damn it, woman---"

Marie's rather thin patience ran out about then. Snatching her hand back as if burned, she squared her thin shoulders and glared up at him, her blue eyes snapping. "You are acting like an idiot right now, Tsume. I don't have time for this. I don't know what your deal is but I'm not about to stand here in a trash-filled back alley just because you have a sudden notion to play hop-scotch in the dark. I'll see you later. I gotta go."

Spinning on her heel, she stalked off, her blue eyes stormy.

Tusme watched her, his expression hard, his eyes molten. She couldn't have heard his low growl or even understand its significance if she had. "_Damn_ you, woman…"

ooOOoo

After pressing the door-bell, Marie wrapped her arms around herself to stave off both the frigid bite in the air and to hide her jittery nerves. Her eyes flicked up and down the deserted street, noting the garbage that had blown up along the curbs. Here, as elsewhere, the street cleaning crews had been disbanded for lack of a paycheck or sufficient funds to repair equipment. It was yet another simple reminder of the slow erosion of public services the city had always taken for granted.

Granted, this wasn't the best neighborhood, but it was far from the worst. Marie had grown up here in the narrow, three-floored townhouses that lined both sides of the street. "Marco's Diner" still lit up one end of the narrow avenue with its red, neon sign, but half the letters were unlit and dull, and the coin-laundry beside him was boarded up and closed. The street was ominously silent---no children playing, no people walking about from the store or work. Then again, it was the middle of the afternoon and people might not be off of work yet. But there should have been a few kids playing outside as school was over for the day.

The door suddenly opened behind her with a loud, squealing protest from its un-oiled hinges. Marie jumped, her nerves taut with all the creepy silence that surrounded her. Turning around, her blue eyes widened as she noted that the chained locks were still engaged, keeping the door from opening completely. "Mom?"

"Marie!" Her mother smiled with tired pleasure, closing the door long enough to disengage the locking chains. Swinging it back open, she invited her daughter in with a wave. "I didn't recognize you, dear, with that cap on. Is it new?"

Marie touched the knitted cap she had thrown over her distinctive blond curls to try and stave off the cold bite in the air. "Yes, it is."

Pulling it off, static crackled through her hair, making the buttery curls cling to her cheeks as she shrugged out of her coat and mittens. She hung them up on the hook beside the front door that had always been hers. It looked like Cher was home, for a smaller coat was hung alongside her mother's on the wall.

"You've caught me by surprise, Marie. The house is such a mess. You should have called first to let me know you were coming over." Her mother scolded in a familiar litany that made Marie smile as she hugged the smaller woman. If not complaining about one thing, her mother would complain about something else. It felt oddly homey and reassuring that her mother, at least, had not changed too much.

Looking down at her, Marie noted a few more silvering hairs among the fading blond hair that her mother had swept back into the familiar, tight bun she always wore.

The blue eyes, still brilliant as either of her daughters', grew concerned as Elaine looked back up at Marie. A work-worn hand gently touched her cheek, and her mother said softly, "Are you all right, dear? You look tired."

Biting her lip, Marie felt her eyes itch as a wash of tears threatened to fall. "Oh, Mom, I---"

"Marie? Marie!" There was a blond blur and Marie was suddenly enfolded in a tangle of skinny arms and legs that had her laughing as her younger sister hugged her fiercely.

"Cher!" She stepped back a bit to touch the bright curls so like her own and realized with a start that her younger sister was now almost as tall as she. "By the Fates, you've grown!"

It was a trite sentiment, but it was true. It had only been a few months, but Cher had shot up like a weed. She'd be as tall as their father if she kept growing like that.

Cher shifted from one foot to the other, self-conscious of her height. She had the fidgety nervousness that so many preteens developed as they started sprouting into young womanhood. She was at that awkward stage, all arms and legs, but there was promise there of a beauty that would blossom in time.

"Ah, you were just as tall at that age," Elaine said with a soft smile as she admired her daughters, who looked so like one another. They could have passed as twins if Cher were older.

"Not as pretty, though," Marie laughed, tucking a buttery curl behind her sister's ear. Cher blushed and dragged her sister from the small foyer and into the kitchen, chatting excitedly about her latest experiment and eager to show her sister the results.

Marie allowed Cher to dominate her attention, though half of what Cher said left her baffled. The girl was as passionate about science as Marie was about chocolate---or Tsume. Marie could sit back and admire her sister's dedication, which would make Cher a brilliant research scientist one day. Even at twelve, Cher was already developing a rather ruthless ambition to succeed in her chosen field, a need that often excluded her from taking part in the more mundane activities other girls her age found so important. Their mother worried incessantly that Cher was far too serious for her age, that she was already too obsessed with success to the exclusion of all else a girl her age should be concerned with---namely, boys.

Marie couldn't see what the problem was. She had never been that boy-crazy as a teenager and although she had never been as shy or quiet as her sister, she had been just as seriously passionate about computers as Cher was science. She had turned out all right and so would Cher, as long as she always had her anxious mother around to keep her grounded.

"Enough, Cher! You'll drive your sister crazy with all that nonsense." Elaine, ever sharp when she was confronted with something that confused her, interrupted them with a familiar frown of disapproval that reminded Marie all too well of her own childhood.

_Mom will never change. She never quite understood us or why we ever cared about all that 'technical stuff.' She always claimed we were more like Dad and he always confused her, too. _Marie nudged her sister's knee with a commiserating smile. Cher looked rebellious for a minute, but just sighed as Elaine demanded if she had cleaned her room.

"Not yet." Cher got up reluctantly. Marie felt bad, she hadn't been by to see her sister often enough.

"We'll talk later, 'kay?" Marie poked her sister in the side, who shied with a smile and a quick nod before disappearing up the stairs to go do her chores.

Elaine sat down at the table with a sigh. "Finally. She's always happy to see you, Marie. You don't come by to see us as much as you should."

Marie dutifully nodded, though her mind was elsewhere. How was she going to break the news to her mother that she was pregnant and by a man she had never even met? Hell, how was she even going to explain Tsume, when he wasn't even really a _man? _Sudden doubts plagued her again and she bit her lip.

Her mother wasn't stupid and she knew her daughters like no one else could. Laying a worn hand over Marie's on the table, she asked gently, "Honey, what is it?"

"Uh…" Marie couldn't meet the concern in her mother's blue eyes with her own. The chair beneath her felt suddenly constrictive and she abruptly stood up, restlessly pacing the small kitchen as she had always done when deeply troubled about something.

Her mother watched her with mingled concern and amusement before making the decision for both of them. "Would you be more comfortable if we took a walk, like we used to do? Maybe we could go get a cup of coffee at Marco's."

Marie seized on the idea, if only to stave off the inevitable for a few more moments. She didn't know why she was so damn nervous. It wasn't as if she was a young teenager. She was a grown woman, damn it, with her own life and her own choices and her own consequences.

Then why was she running away like a child who needed comfort from her mother when she should---as a mature adult---confront Tsume with her suspicions and work through them like a grown ass woman who could handle anything and everything? But for some crazy reason she needed her Mom's reassurance right now, her Mom's support and simple, down-to-earth practicality. As frustrating as Elaine could be at times, she also had an uncanny ability to cut right to the heart of a problem and Marie's emotions were in such turmoil she needed that right now---desperately.

"That…that would be nice, Mom. Thank you." Marie gave the smaller woman a grateful hug and Elaine patted her cheek, her smile tender as they traced their steps back to the foyer to retrieve their coats.

ooOOoo

The tall, white-haired man paused on the dusty street corner. He stood out among the few people hurrying along the street who were bundled in thick layers against the fierce wind that howled around the edges of the crumbling brick buildings. He acted as if the cold did not touch him, half-dressed as he was in ripped, black leather. There was something in his marked stillness that had the other people giving him a wide berth as they scurried past him.

Turning his head sharply to the left, he tested the wind that gusted around him, sending scraps of paper rattling down the street and tugging at the thin tail that bound his white hair back. Golden eyes narrowed as he abruptly stiffened. With surprising alacrity, he turned and vanished inside an abandoned alcove. Not a minute later, a squad of helmeted city police jogged past, their weapons conspicuously cradled in their arms across their armored chests. The few people out on the street stopped and gaped as the armed personal guards of Lord Okum tramped past them at a good clip. They came back to life as a second patrol rounded the corner, scuttling out of the way as the larger unit followed the first. Both groups quickly disappeared down yet another narrow passage, leaving the deserted street strangely forlorn and lonely as the biting wind moaned its discontent among the tightly shuttered tenement shops.

It was a long moment before the black-clad man appeared again. He growled softly to himself, his yellow eyes flashing as he ducked into a side-street that ran counter-point to the patrol's steady, stamping progress across the city. He didn't like the purpose to their stride or the fact that _her_ scent faintly whispered to him on the shivering wind of their passage.

ooOOoo

The desperate, heavy thuds on the front door boomed throughout the quiet house, echoing up the stairs to where young Cher was absently tugging her blanket straight. She jerked up in surprise at the first, sharp knock. It was quickly followed by a battery of blows that had her all but stumbling down the narrow stairs in her haste to get to the foyer. Mom and Marie had left some time ago for their walk; she was almost done with her room, but she was frightened by the thundering blows that accompanied her scramble down the steps. Who could it be, and why were they knocking so loudly? Something might have happened to Mom, or Marie…

She snatched the front door open with a fumbling turn of the troublesome knob and stared in wide-eyed shock at the fat little man who stood on the stoop before her with such desperate fear in his dark eyes. He was a bit red in the face, his eyes widening behind the thick, fogging spectacles that sat on his rather bulbous nose.

"You're not Marie." He sounded rather affronted to find her there, rather than her sister.

"I'm Cher. Marie isn't home. Can I help you, sir…?" Cher hugged the door, uneasily nervous with such a strange little man but still polite, as her mother had taught her.

"Where is she?" The man's voice was low, urgent. His eyes darted up and down the deserted, wind-blown street as if he could materialize Marie out of thin air.

"Dunno," Cher replied, unwilling to say anything more. "You can try back later…" She started edging the door closed.

"No time." The man shook his head, biting his lip with indecision as Cher shivered in the icy wind that whistled around the opened door. The door creaked as Cher inched it forward a bit, hoping he would take the hint.

His beady little eyes blinked on her as if grasping at any straw. "No time. There's no time. They're after me. They found out---I don't know how---that I know. I must flee the city. Lord Okum's declared martial law and shut down the lab. You must tell her."

"You're crazy," Cher whispered, frightened, and tried to slam the door shut, but a pudgy arm blocked her abortive move.

"No, wait. Tell her, tell Marie. I'm Dr. Davigny. Tell her---I must go. There's no time, and they will most likely find me. They must not find the book. I cannot let them have the book. You understand?" He was desperate now, voice hoarse and all but choking on his own fear. Fishing a wrapped bundle from out of his thick coat, he wedged it through the narrow opening made by his heavy arm blocking the door.

"Please, girl. Give it to her. She will understand, she will know. They cannot have the book. Take it, take it."

Cher mutely shook her head, scared by the man's desperate insistence. Ignoring her reticence, the man thrust the wrapped bundle through the doorway so that it fell with a thud on the worn linoleum of the foyer.

Mission accomplished, the man released his hold on the door-frame, hissing a last, _"Tell her!," _as he scuttled back down the short flight of stairs. Shivering, Cher watched him scurry down the street, his shoulders hunched as if that might help to hide him. Shutting the door, Cher thrust the triple locks home with fierce intensity, hoping to drive away her own uneasiness and fright.

"He's just a crazy old man," she tried to comfort herself as she knelt to pick up the wrapped package on the floor, curiosity getting the better of her. Peeling the protective oil-cloth back, she blinked at the faded red cover with its gilt edging.

"'The Book of the Moon?'"

ooOOoo

"The fugitive has been spotted, sir."

The captain's heavy brows came down in a dark vee across his long nose. "Show me," he brusquely ordered the junior officer.

A blip appeared on the digital display that mapped the narrow streets of this quiet residential section of Freeze City. The captain frowned. Noble Lord Okum would not take kindly to any unwarranted disturbances in this part of the city. His orders had been for the discreet retrieval of the professor---though his orders had been a bit vague on whether or not the man should be brought in dead or alive. It hardly mattered, anyhow. They didn't need the good doctor, they only needed that stupid book.

"What do you think, Lawres?" The captain turned to his second-in-command. He was a gifted strategist, if a little too cold and calculating for his tastes. Still, Lawres was a gem of ingenuity. "We can hardly go from house to house, demanding they hand over Davigny. Our Noble Lord would not appreciate such a disturbance to the citizens of this section without good cause---"

"Perhaps that is what we need, sir," Lawres' chilly blue eyes lit with vicious inspiration. "A disturbance of good cause."

"Explain yourself, Second," the captain growled, though he might just know what Lawres was getting at. The man was a brilliant tactician and clever as hell. A gem, indeed.

"A riot, sir? Surely we would have to put such a vicious menace to the peace of this section down without qualm, sir, and if we have to do it with a good show of force, than who is to blame us in the doing of our duty?" The glint of prim satisfaction in Lawres' cold blue eyes was almost distasteful. If the man had a weakness, it was that he was a tad over-fond of violence.

Still, such a discrepancy could be overlooked in a man so talented at finding solutions to rather sticky situations.

"Indeed. A riot, you say? How…convenient."

ooOOoo

Marie slumped back into the cracked vinyl of the tiny booth, rubbing her pounding temples as her mother closed her eyes and sighed with resignation. "You're pregnant."

Marie mutely nodded, then realized that her mother couldn't possibly see the abortive movement with her eyes shut tight, and said tersely, "Yes."

She listlessly stirred the cooling coffee cup before her, the spoon ringing against the cup's curved side. Elaine opened her eyes at the sharp sound in the quiet, deserted diner and admonished sharply, "Then you shouldn't be drinking that. Caffeine is bad for the baby."

Marie restlessly pushed the cup away, not interested anyway in the lukewarm sludge.

"What about the father?" Her mother asked, her brow wrinkled.

"He's---it's complicated," Marie finished rather lamely. She felt wilted, drained, and her mother was not reacting as she had expected. Instead of reassurance and loving support, Elaine seemed agitated and almost angry.

Should she have expected anything else? Hell, Marie didn't know what to expect. It felt good, though, to have finally told somebody. Keeping a secret like that was pure hell.

"Who is it?" Elaine demanded, her voice a bit shrill.

"His name is Tsume. He's…well, Mom, he's…" Marie fidgeted with the spoon again, trying to find some way to explain to her all-too-practical mother just what, exactly, her boyfriend---or whatever---_was_.

Hell, did she even know?

She felt a sudden urge to giggle, a rather hysterical reaction. More important, did she even know what her baby was?Or would be?

The silence felt heavy, though there was a faint rumble, a low muttering sound in the distance that oddly reminded her of the low hint of warning in Tsume's ever-ready growl. By the Fates, she wished he was here, with her, right now.

"Does he know?" Elaine sat back, her blue eyes wise.

"No," Marie said softly, saddened by that fact, and by the fact that she hadn't had the balls to tell him yet. What was she doing? Damn, she was an idiot. She should have told him the first moment she ever suspected. She was---

"What _is_ that noise?" Elaine demanded sharply, her voice rising in harsh complaint as the faint rumblings grew louder. Behind the worn formica of his cracked counter, Marco merely shrugged, though his expression grew suddenly alarmed as multiple cracks split the ominous rumble outside. There was a faint staccato of fumbling steps on the outside pavement, as if somebody were running, and then another, and another.

"What in heaven's name…?" Elaine half-rose from her seat, her blue eyes widening in alarm as she stared out the smudged glass behind her daughter's head.

Marie blinked as Marco's mouth fell open, the worn dishrag finally stilled in his hand. With an ominous feeling of unreality, she felt her head slowly turning to stare out the window, and her eyes widened as cold fear twisted deep in her gut.

ooOOoo

"Marie! _Marie!"_

His howl rent the stumbling chaos all around him. Tsume felt the tide of panicked humanity surge about him as additional shots were fired into the seething crowd. Loud screams of rage and fear enveloped him, making him wince as they echoed in his sensitive ears even as he ducked under an out-flung arm. Somebody's elbow jabbed him sharply in the side and he snarled, baring his teeth. Frightened eyes swam into his vision as those nearest him tried to flee both him and the dangers behind them.

One of the shadowy forms in front of him fell beneath the furious press of the frightened crowd and was trampled underneath, their screams abruptly cut off as other people bawled in mortal terror of their very lives. More shots were fired; sharp, echoing cracks splitting through the menacing rumble of the police tanks and the panicked shouts of the mindless rabble. The sounds of breaking glass tinkled and splashed, adding an odd counterpoint to the dull, throbbing roar of ominous dread.

Tsume fought to keep his feet, viciously forcing his way through the screaming sheep surrounding him. More shots rang out, closer now, and the sharp odor of gun-powder itched in his nose. There was a yelp beside him and a nameless man fell, a woman screaming in horror as blood flowered along his side. Ducking, Tsume felt more than heard another bullet whistling just over his head. Snarling his rage at the seething tide of terrified humanity around him, he roared his frustration, his eyes glowing with a feral gleam.

"Marie!"

Something was wrong, terribly wrong. He felt it in his bones, in his very soul, in that instinctive place in his gut that just howled out to him that something terrible and utterly, unimaginably awful had just happened. He knew it, he felt it, but he howled out his screaming denial.

"No! _**Marie!"**_

Instinct overcame him then and he abandoned the illusively ineffective body he wore for his true form. There was a startled shriek behind him as someone froze, seeing the man change into a snarling, grey beast right before their stunned eyes. The shock cost the fool his life, for he was knocked over and trampled even as Tsume leapt past another screaming idiot standing right in front of him. New cries of rising hysteria rose from the people who had rung him and a second wave formed in the sweeping sea of terrified humanity as they tried to get away from the snarling wolf within their midst.

Tsume ignored them, his mind taken up with the need to find his mate. _Marie!_

He ran and bit and fought his way through the throng of screaming people, caught up in the mindless violence and terror of the mob. He felt something sharp pierce his side once, felt the occasional blow as a braver fool would strike out at him as he leapt past. He ignored the pain, snarled and fought and even killed when he must, and ran on.

The riot was in full swing and the armored tanks and police that swarmed the area tried to quell the seething mob, shouting demands and threats out across the mindless babble of confused hysteria with sharp orders to disperse. Shots rang out and more screams mixed with the blood that covered the street as desperate people fled for their very lives. Tsume's paws touched the warm stickiness and soft, squishy bodies of the dead and dying without true notice, a face swimming into his vision and then back out without regard as he leapt past. Her scent grew stronger and he ran with panting breath and hard defiance in his heart. He cut his paw on a pair of broken spectacles, the fat little man's face swimming before him. It was someone he should have known, should have recognized, but he was too taken up with his own heart-twisting fear to care right then.

_There!_

Her scent was strongest there, but the thick, metallic scent of fresh blood was heavily threaded among it. He denied it, denied the truth and the meaning of it. There was blood everywhere, in his vision and in his fur as he leapt through the broken window, the sharp edges of the shattered glass catching on his soft underbelly. The place was in shambles, tables overturned and chairs broken into so many matchsticks. A man lay beside the broken door as if he had tried to keep the mindless mob's violence at bay with his own two hands. An older woman lay dead on the floor nearby and the look of her had Tsume's heart freezing in his chest---but it wasn't her, his Marie. It was someone like her, though older, and there was enough of a superficial resemblance to her familiar scent that it made him whine and snarl as he stood trembling and panting over the woman's dead body.

"W-Wolf?" A faint whisper reached his ears, and he turned his head sharply.

_Marie!_

He was there, beside her, in one leap, changing form in the air so that he could cradle her small body in his strong arms. "Marie, my God, Marie…"

"You…you came…" She whispered brokenly to him, her blue eyes misting with tears as she coughed weakly. Blood covered her stomach, the sticky, warm wetness of it plastering her sweatshirt to her skin, with more seeping from a sullen wound at her shoulder.

"No…God, no…" Tsume _knew_ and denied it, screamed it as she coughed again, her eyes fluttering closed as her breath came in short pants. _"No!"_

"Tsume, Tsume, please…" She sobbed for him, for her, for what was not to be. "I'm so sorry, so very sorry…"

"Marie. God, Marie, no! Please, God, _no!"_ Tsume howled over her, rocking her small body in his arms as if that would stop the inevitable.

"I…I never told you…I'm sorry…I'm so very sorry…I loved you, Wolf, I loved you…"

"Marie!"

Her blue eyes, so brilliant and jewel-like in the sapphire sheen of her un-fallen tears, grew empty as her broken body sagged against him and his aching howl of utter loss and denial at the betrayal of fickle fate rent the air, sending its heart-wrenching keen spiraling out across the shouting chaos around them.

_**"MARIE!"**_


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Saved**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of Keiko Nobumoto/Bones characters or ideas. This story is for entertainment purposes only and not for sale or profit.

_A/N: I have never seen the end of Wolf's Rain, or the 'recap" episodes that explained Tsume's scar. Researching it online, I used other people's descriptions of what took place and my own imagination to fill in the obvious gaps. Any mistakes are through my own ignorance. This has been gratifying to write, and I hope you like fluffy WAFF as much as I. Thanks again for your support! (Fate)_

**Chapter Eleven: World Without End**

_ooo The End ooo_

He was not allowed enough time to mourn her, but would any time have been enough to truly mourn all that she was and all that she meant to him? For he knew only now how truly she had captured him, how truly she had caught at his heart and entangled herself up in it. He would never, ever, forget her and time would never dull the ache in his heart, even though the passing of many long years lay between then and now as he felt his own life's blood slowly seeping out of him.

Had it felt like this to her? Had she felt the pain and the almost ethereal sensation of being not quite in her own body. That she was somehow detached and only dimly aware of her body's weakening struggle as it drew ragged breaths against the inevitable end to _all_ struggle? It was as if death were creeping up to claim someone else and not him. It was strange, distant, the world's edges blurring as his vision swam in and out of focus.

His breath came labored, his life leaving him in aching slowness as it bled out of him across the uncaring ground. Everything was ashes---their dreams, their hopes, their desires. Funny how even he, cynic that he was, had come to _believe_ in the end. He had needed to believe, had needed that desperate, last hope to cling to that he might find it, might find Paradise, even as he knew deep in his gut that he had found it long ago in the arms of a woman long dead.

The memory of her burned in him, undimmed by time. He could see her, with his mind's eye, in aching detail---her buttery blond curls falling over her shoulders as she gave him a sensual smile full of teasing promise. He could reach out and touch her…trace his fingers across the curve of her sweet lips, feel the warmth of her breath against the sensitive pad of his thumb as he stared deep into her laughing, blue eyes.

_"I love you,"_ she whispered, her voice soft and husky, her eyes deepening sapphires of rare indigo.

"I love you, too, my Marie…" he said, whispering the words he had never uttered while she were alive to hear them. The pain of that hurt him. She had never heard those simple, true words, had never known and would never know how much she had caught him as he in his proud, arrogant youth had never expected to be caught. He almost hated her for that, that she had taken his heart and left it ashes at her pointless death. He hated _them_ for that---the humans, the men who had taken her from him too soon, and the Nobles who had ordered it without thought or concern for the innocents who might die in their stupid, petty plays for power.

He had never been given a chance to truly mourn her. The guards had come upon them, the riot quickly diffusing as soon as its nasty purpose had been accomplished. The professor had died, the book mysteriously disappearing. It was a small triumph---though he had not known at the time the significance of the manuscript---and hardly cared, even now that he did.

They had spoken of it, those guards, those _men_ who were supposed to protect the city and had betrayed it for a Noble Lord's greedy whim. They had not seen him huddled in the shadows of the wrecked diner, his love held tight in his arms as he curled around her in silent protest of the growingly empty night. Their scoffing, smug words had slowly penetrated his dull inattention to the world around him. Pulling his aching mind from the utter ruin of his life, their words kindled a sullen anger in his blood until it sang in screaming fire in his heart, boiling over until he had become more the primal wolf than ever before, a maddened beast bent on revenge.

They had died under that rage and anger; that seething, boiling, never-ending fury that he had used---if only temporarily---to stave off the stark truth of all that he had just lost. He had killed until the blood matted his fur black and still the rage howled at him, denying what his reality now was. But it had not been enough to assuage his loss, and eventually the rage had left him with only the bitter ashes of a world now dead to him, without hope or meaning.

He was young then, or, at least, younger. He had left Freeze City to return again to his pack. They had laughed before at his foolishness in leaving them for the city and the nagging curiosity that had drawn him there. Returning was bitter, and he had changed. Grown more brooding and silent, his eyes old beyond their years and full of a pain that he hid deep in his heart, he did not want their sympathy or disdain that he, foolish wolf that he was, had fallen in love with a human woman and then lost her, his mate, forever to the cold night.

He had feared death then as he never had before, and felt no loyalty to his kin and clan as he once had. There was no one who could ever replace the bittersweet memory of Marie in his heart. That fear of death was only that _she_ would be lost to him forever---that once he was torn from this earth, than she was torn forever from his memory and his heart. He could not believe in God or Fates now---if They had truly existed, then They would never have permitted such a thing to ever have happened. With no hope of a life past this one, he could not bear to lose her twice, and so he had betrayed his kind for the mere sake of keeping a faint memory of her alive in his selfish heart.

And so he had fled when the men attacked his pack, and he was hunted down like the miserable dog that he was and scarred forever with the mark of utter betrayal. He despised himself and hated her then, for costing him even his heritage. His pride was all he had left, his pride and his cynicism and the empty, aching, never-ending loneliness of his traitorous heart. It was then the he buried her memory beneath a wall of anger and resentment, bitterness and pain. He slunk back to the city he had once known and became as one of the thieving dogs in the alleys squabbling over trash and broken bones, scraping a bare living by stealing what he could to survive. Ever lonely---though he denied it fiercely enough, even to himself---he had gathered a gang of human dogs to himself, only to betray them, too, in the end.

It was Toboe who had pulled him back from the uncaring emptiness of his lonely wandering. Toboe, with his bright-eyed innocence and persistent eagerness for life, had reminded him achingly of _her_. For the first time in many years, he had been forced to recognize all the painful promise that had died along with her. He would have had a son, maybe, if she had lived to bear it. He had never allowed himself to think of that fact, the thought had hurt too much, but Toboe---Toboe reminded him of the son he could never have now, and it was Toboe himself in all his pure innocence who had touched his heart for the first time since Marie's death left it bitter ashes.

It was all of them---Kiba and Hige, and yes, even Cheza and that half-dog Blue---who had touched him and brought him out of his own bitter, empty world and back into this one. Kiba challenged him with his faith and his unwavering confidence. Challenged him to live once more, to hope and to dream, even though he had fought it---hard. It was Hige's humor, Cheza's compassion and Blue's quiet dignity that had shown him how truly unworthy his own bitter resentment was.

It was that woman, though, that scientist, that Cher Degre, who had finally jerked him out of his smoldering anger toward the past. She was so like his Marie, even to the scent of her---though it was not the same, could never be the same. Seeing her had brought back all the pain and heart-wrenching loss of Marie's death, smacking him right in the muzzle with the memory of it all over again as if it had just happened, her dying whispers and his howling contradiction…

But it was only then that he was finally able to weep, silently and unheard, yes, but it had healed him enough to look once more outside of a barren world locked in misery to see hope and possibility once more, allowing him, even, to dream.

_Paradise…_

He had scoffed at Kiba, even as he had hoped that it was true, that he could find it. Paradise…it was a beautiful, silly dream. Paradise would have been him with _her_, alive, his son by his side and life stretching out before them to be lived together…laughing and loving and fussing and fighting and shouting and making love as one melded together and never undone…

He coughed and the blood frothed bitter and metallic in the back of his throat. He wanted to vomit, but lacked the strength, for it was seeping from him even as he panted, choking on it. How fickle Fate was, how evil the One God. They had denied him, twice now, his hopes.

A bitter laugh, a mad laugh, echoed in his mind and he huffed weakly, his tongue lolling out as silent misery crept into his heart. They were dying, all of them. Dead, dead, dying, dead…their dreams pathetic, their life forgotten, their world doomed.

_"Tsume…Tsume, please…"_ The memory of her words echoed bitter in his heart, mocking him. _"I loved you, Wolf, I loved you…"_

_Marie…_

She was there, suddenly, cradling him in her arms, her scent welcoming him as his eyes dimmed on this world for the last time.

_Marie…_

The dream faded, as his awareness faded, and all was blackness as he breathed his last breath on a dying world.

_ooo The Beginning ooo_

Life was not yet done for him. His spirit hung, suspended, between the very stars of the universe as it was born anew. The world was remade in hope, for that was the one thing that could never be denied the living, the hope that Life and Love and Truth would eventually prevail in the end. The wheel was turned, the gate opened, so that they could learn anew and perhaps, this time, to do it better…

One moment he floated amid the stars, of them and among them, and the next he was astride a _motorcycle_, of all things, the wind blowing against his face as his hands curled tight over the bars, the machine humming jauntily beneath him. He had always wanted to experience it, had always secretly desired it---though he would have sharply denied that wistful longing if anyone had asked. He remembered them faintly, those _others_ he had journeyed with, and would journey with again. But for now…for now he had another life to live, perhaps several, before that last cycle would begin again.

Life to live, with love reborn---for there she was, his Marie, his love, the soul that was the other half of his own, no matter what form they took in this life or any other. She was his other---probably better---half, and life could not be complete without her there with him.

She waved at him, the buttery blond curls flying all over her beloved face, her blue eyes laughing up at him as he pulled alongside, the motorcycle purring contentedly. He bared his teeth in a grin of triumph, the wolf there still---though this human form was more solid than the one in his last life---and she slipped behind him, her arms twining around his taut middle as she rested her curly blond head on his broad shoulder and sighed.

"I have something to tell you, love," she whispered to him, joy in her hidden gaze.

He dropped a hand to tighten it over hers. "I know, my own. I know," he said, voice hoarse with pride of the promise once again renewed within her quickened womb.

"Do you now?" She stiffened, growling her displeasure that she could not surprise him with the news.

He laughed, the sound utterly unfettered and free and joyous, and she pushed at him as he held her hands tight in his one, her arms kept prisoner around his waist.

"Damn it, Wolf!" She scowled, and he laughed again, loving it and loving her.

"I love you, woman! God, how I love you!"

"Like I don't know that!" she huffed, and tried to jerk her hands free, but he turned and captured her scowling lips with his own, sealing the promise of life reborn between them, saved by her as he had once saved hers.


End file.
